(Due to arrive Canberra 16.2.29)

My dear P.M.,

Re the shipping companies and freight rates-there is really
nothing much more to say in addition to the telegrams that passed
between us. I am most relieved for your sake that it has turned
out reasonably satisfactorily in the end. [1] Richard Holt [2] was
the stumbling block and gave in with a bad grace. When he was
first informed of the position he said to Shaw [3] (P. & O.): 'For
my part I'll see them damned-let the Bruce Government go smash and
we'll see how we get on with the next crowd.' Shaw tells me that
this isn't quite to be taken at face value, as Holt is the type
that gives vent to quite unrestrained comment of that sort and
then waits to be wheedled round. He is, I am told, a very pleasant
fellow, but has rather an intolerant attitude to any opposition
to, or curtailment of, his wishes. His forbears have sailed the
seas successfully with their own ships for so many generations
that they think the world is in their debt. Even when he was
talked out of his completely intransigent attitude, Holt was still
for trying to get a hard and fast quid pro quo out of you-to try
and get you to tie yourself down to some action, legislative or
otherwise, that would tend to benefit the situation of the
shipping companies. He took the point of view that you had not
gone an inch out of your way to meet them or to ease their
situation. His final shot at the second meeting of the heads of
the shipping companies was that he was forced to agree as he would
lose business if he kept his rates up, but that if the situation
had been that they wanted to put the rates up and he did not, then
he would have held out against them and gone his own way.

Shaw tells me in confidence that all the companies trading to
Australia have been losing money for some years-except the Orient,
which makes a profit on its passenger business and which is not
much concerned with the freight side. One company, he said, had
lost 50,000 last year.

Shaw is a good fellow and has been the greatest help. His name is
the Hon. Alexander Shaw, son of an old Scotch law Lord [4] who is
still alive. He married one of Inchcape's daughters and is said to
be the natural successor of Lord Inchcape as head of the P. & O.

He was a member of Parliament for some time and is a Director of
the Bank of England. He is 46.

I wrote privately to both Shaw and Anderson [5] thanking them in
your name for the efforts that they had made to get this freight
business put right. They were both very grateful for your message.

Sir Alan Anderson had already arranged to leave London on February
2nd for Suez on one of his own ships on a semi-business trip, and
it is possible that, if he is chosen as one of the delegates to
Australia, he will go straight on. I think Sir Granville Ryrie [6]
is going with him as far as Suez to get the benefit of the sea
trip after his illness.

Anderson jotted down a draft of the sort of notification that you
might make to the Press in Australia with regard to the freight
business, and gave it to me on the evening of 15th January. I
enclose it herewith. As it contained practically nothing that
would not already be in your mind, I did not do anything about it.

There were, in my opinion, no 'plums' in it that I could abstract
and I did not think it worth while to telegraph you the whole of
it.

Some time in the near future you will be asked to consider the
question of Belligerent Rights. The documentation is tremendous at
this end, and I have not sent it to you as it would be impossible
to get such a mass of detailed material considered. However, a
milestone has now been reached and I send you, in another letter
by this mail, copy of Hankey's [7] tentative (and as yet
unofficial) draft Report of the Belligerent Rights Sub-Committee
of the C.I.D., which gives a convenient summary of the arguments.

It would, I think, be as well to get someone going into the
subject, so as to be ready with the Australian viewpoint when you
are asked from this end.

Although I have not sent out the detailed minutes of the meetings
of the B. R. Sub-Committee, I have sent out a good deal of
material that is on the files of the External Affairs Department.

I gather that Keith Murdoch [8] is becoming a great power in the
land through the rising value of the Herald group of papers as a
property, and through the acquisition of interests in papers all
over the Commonwealth. I hear that he has just organised a company
to take over the Adelaide 'Advertiser' from Bonython. [9] He is,
however, I think, a better influence in the country than some
other of our press magnates.

The Sun-Herald Cable Service in London is very pleased at having
secured the job of serving a big group of South African papers
with cable news.

In conversation with Clive Baillieu [10] (the elder) who went as
substitute delegate to the League Assembly last September, he gave
me to understand that he would much like to go to Geneva as a
delegate again in September of this year. He goes out to Australia
in a fortnight but apparently intends returning for a trip to
England later in the year.

Dunlops, as you will have seen, are going in for consolidation and
rationalisation on the grand scale. The Far East and India and
Canada are, I believe, controlled through the Tyre Investment
Trust-and now Australia has merged what I imagine are all the
important existing rubber companies.

Amery [11] returns from Switzerland today and I hope can be
induced to bring the question of the free loan of the 'Discovery'
before Cabinet at an early date. Although I have throughout
maintained the attitude that, as far as my knowledge of your mind
goes, the decision regarding the expedition depends on the free
loan of the 'Discovery'-I hope that such is not actually the case,
and that you would not be debarred from sending the expedition on
this account. [12] I venture to hope that you would go on with it
even if Australia had to finance the whole effort. There is not
too much time and I only hope the matter is decided soon. I have a
cable from Mawson from Perth saying he arrives here in mid-
February and asking me to try and 'hold the Discovery'. My wife
suggested that I should reply that I would do my best provided I
had an assurance that he would name a new type of penguin after
me!

I am, Yours sincerely,
R.G. CASEY