My dear Prime Minister,

By the time this letter reaches you, you will be deep in the
Election Campaign and probably will have little time to consider
anything except very urgent matters until after the 17th of
November.

There has been a gap of a fortnight in my letters to you, due to
the fact that I went up to Scotland for four or five days to visit
Scotch Agricultural Research Stations and to discuss Australian
Pastoral Research with Dr. Orr. [1] I then took ten days' holiday
in Yorkshire and was fortunate enough to strike really good
weather and to enjoy a series of long solitary walks over the
Moors.

You will be interested to know that Dr. Orr is extremely keen on
lending a hand to assist Australia to apply the results of
research in Animal Nutrition to her own problems.

Walter Elliot [2] has only just returned from a long holiday in
France and Germany but as Dr. Orr happens to be in London today,
Elliot, Orr and myself are dining together tonight to consider
what definite proposals can be made whereby Orr and Theiler [3]
can be made available for Australian purposes and yet continue to
do work for the whole of the British Empire. I hope to be able to
give you further information on this point by this mail.

ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

I am sorry that the speech which I prepared for Senator McLachlan
[4] has not been forwarded to you during my absence from the
office. I now enclose a copy.

I have carefully read the various reports which have appeared in
the English press of Senator McLachlan's speech in the Assembly
[5] and as far as I can gather he used a considerable portion of
this speech in his main Address. I have written to the Senator
asking him to be good enough to make arrangements whereby I shall
be informed as to the line of country which he took up in Geneva
and- also as to whether he had the opportunity of any
consultations with other Empire Delegations on League of Nations
economic activities. It will be very useful for me to know just
what line of country was officially taken up by the Delegation.

MECHANICAL TRANSPORT

I regret to say that during the last six weeks no progress has
been made by the Government here on getting action taken on the
report of the Mechanical Transport Committee of the Committee of
Civil Research. [6] The Empire Marketing Board has agreed to find
the 60,000 which is to be its share of the total expenditure and
nothing is now needed to get the work in hand except ministerial
approval of the formation of the Committee of Direction. I shall
do everything in my power during the next two or three weeks to
try to get the authorities to realise that a solution of the
mechanical transport problems of the Empire is a matter which will
not brook even a month's delay.

There seems to be quite a reasonable chance of a new type of track
for caterpillar vehicles proving an immense advance on anything
that we have had in the past. This track is already in existence
and is under test by the War Office with, I believe, very
satisfactory results. I am urging that special arrangements should
immediately be made to test this track to exhaustion and to
discover whether the claims that it will stand up to from 6,000 to
10,000 miles can be substantiated. Should this prove to be
correct, the evolution of a road train to convey goods at a cost
of about 3d. to 4d. per ton mile should become a practical project
within the next eighteen months. It is, however, difficult to
overcome the inertia of Government Departments and get people to
realise the importance of vigorously prosecuting this work.

20th September

The result of last night's discussion with Elliot and Orr was that
we finally got down to a basis on which Elliot was prepared to
agree that Orr could revisit Australia for a reasonable period.

Both Elliot and Orr agreed that the economic significance of
pastoral research in Australia was greater than in any other part
of the British Empire but they both were most emphatic that three
arrangements had to be made before Orr could leave England again.

The first was that the Imperial Bureau of Animal Nutrition, of
which Orr is to be head, must be started; the second was that a
new experimental farm in connection with the Rowett Research
Institute must be got under way and, thirdly, a suitable Deputy
Director for the Rowett Institute must be found in Orr's place.

Elliot and Orr estimated that these various steps might be
satisfactorily accomplished in eighteen months.

I have written fully to Dr. Rivett [7] on the subject and have
told him that so far I have not been able to get any very definite
expression from the Colonial Office about Sir Arnold Theiler but
hope to be able to give him quite definite reactions early next
week.

It seems to me that there is a possibility of our being able to
appoint Theiler to a definite position in Australia provided we
would [release] him say for eight months in every twenty-four for
Imperial purposes and that we should simultaneously appoint Orr as
a consultant to visit Australia every two years and to keep in
close touch with Theiler in the whole of the Animal Husbandry
work.

Yours sincerely,
F. L. MCDOUGALL