(Due to arrive Canberra 8.6.29)

My dear P.M.,

I have been submerged this week by Mawson's impending departure
today. [1] He is handing over a great mass of unfinished jobs to
me, which will take a big proportion of my time for the next month
at least. I have to get the aeroplane, negotiate the Charter
Party, British and European press rights, fix the insurance and
arrange for the installation of the wireless and echosounding
gear. J. K. Davis [2] is to be fully occupied on other jobs and
will not touch the above. So if my mails to you are light, it will
not mean that I have been immersed in the fleshpots of the Season.

I gave a lunch yesterday for Wiikins [3], at which I had
representatives of all departments, as well as the press and a
number of prominent Australians in London. I hope it will result
in his getting reasonably good contributions from some of the old
gentlemen present. I had Stefansson [4] there, who was able to
give Wilkins a much better and more disinterested 'boost' than I
was in a position to do. He and Wilkins (having mutually saved
each other's lives on various unpleasant occasions) are the only
two polar workers that I have met who have remained friends.

Mawson still leaves no stone unturned to deprecate and decry
Wilkins in the most unpleasant and childish way. He started it
with me until I told him that, whatever his deficiencies, Wilkins
was a friend of mine and that, as regards his work, it appeared to
me that he deserved great consideration in view of his Arctic
flight and his Graham Land effort-leaving out his previous record.

I enclose copy of a book of speeches of Lord Birkenhead's [5],
which it may interest you to look through. They are selected from
his serious efforts and would have been lightened by a few of his
after dinner performances. But they are all delightful to read,
which makes them an exception to Disraeli's dictum that 'if a
speech reads well, it is unlikely to have been a good speech'.

I send in another letter a most secret C.I.D. document on the
Defence of India, which I have been allowed to send you personally
(and presumably at your discretion to be seen by the Defence
Minister [6] and C.G.S. [7]), but which is not going to other
Dominions.

I enclose letter from Amery [8] to the 'Times' (8th May), urging a
more extended use of Empire timbers. In a house that I am just
about to build in Westminster, I am having jarrah parquet floors
and panelling and doors of Australian woods.

My wife insists that I send you an unsolicited testimonial in the
form of a letter to her from Allen Leeper's [9] wife.

I am, Yours sincerely,
R.G. CASEY