My dear Prime Minister,

You may have received by last mail a document from the Associated
British Chambers of Commerce. This document, I believe, has been
officially forwarded by the Associated Chambers of the United
Kingdom to the Associated Chambers in Australia. A copy has been
confidentially sent to me but I want to inform you of the
position.

Apparently at a meeting of the Council of the Associated Chambers
of Commerce at the end of May, representatives from Leicester and
the West Riding of Yorkshire strongly insisted that the
Association should make a vigorous protest to the Commonwealth
Government on the subject of the Australian Tariff. It was decided
that the matter should be very carefully considered and a special
Committee was selected to draw up a draft report.

I am told that, after the meeting, Sir Arthur Balfour [1] went to
the President of the Associated Chamber [2] and urged strongly
upon him that I should be consulted before any action on the lines
suggested was taken.

The Secretary of the Associated Chambers [3], therefore, called on
me and urged that I should meet the President and himself to
discuss the question. I agreed to do this and strongly advised
them that as the Business Mission was going to Australia, the
Associated Chamber should not, at the present juncture, forward
any communication of the sort they had in mind to the Commonwealth
Government. They told me that they felt that the feeling was so
high in certain quarters that they would have to agree to taking
some action. After again urging them to consider whether they
could not leave the whole matter in abeyance until after the
return of the Business Mission, I said that, if they found that
they must take some action, the proper course would be to address
a very carefully considered memorandum not to the Commonwealth
Government but to the Associated Chambers of Commerce in
Australia, their own opposite numbers.

The President told me that a draft report had already been
prepared and that he would like to send me a copy and to have an
opportunity of discussing the draft with me. I told him that I
could only agree to discuss the draft on the very definite
understanding that my doing so was kept strictly private and that he
understood that my advice was that the whole matter should be left
in abeyance for the time being.

A couple of days later I received a copy of the draft, which I am
now enclosing. I then met the President and Secretary again and
pointed out how very unsound the original draft was and I made a
series of suggestions which seemed to meet with their approval. I
find that, in its final form, the document has been substantially
changed and I do not think it is likely to cause any embarrassment
in Australia. I also enclose a copy marked No. 2, which was sent
to me after my second conversation with the President and
Secretary of the Associated Chambers. If you have time, it may
interest you to compare the two documents, because the first will
show you how seriously even a well-intentioned body, such as the
Associated Chambers of Commerce undoubtedly are, can mis-state the
position. [4]

Yours sincerely,
F. L. MCDOUGALL