[Written from Geneva]

My dear Prime Minister,

So far little of importance from the economic point of view has
arisen at Geneva. The arrangement is that the Committee dealing
with economic subjects should start its work on Friday, on which
day Graham [1] the President of the Board of Trade will arrive in
Geneva. He, I think, intends to speak in the Assembly on Saturday
so I have asked the British Delegation to arrange for a meeting of
the British Empire representatives on No. 2 Committee (economic
and technical questions) to be held on Friday evening in order
that we may have an opportunity of discussing with Graham the line
of country which he is going to adopt in the League's economic
activities.

MacDonald [2] in his speech yesterday made sweeping reference to
his desire to see the League strengthen its efforts for the
reduction of tariffs, but his statement on this matter was
extremely woolly-headed and no one quite understood what it meant.

I have been in touch with O'Sullivan [3] of the Irish Free State,
de Villiers [4] of the South African Delegation and with two of
the Canadians. I shall also make a point of having a talk to one
of the Indian people and also with SirJames Parr [5] of New
Zealand before Friday in order that I may put into their minds the
point of view that an extreme anti-tariff attitude by the League
of Nations is incompatible with the attitude of our respective
Governments in regard to the subject.

With regard to the Imperial Conference I am much interested in the
reply to the cable which I believe Casey [6] sent you last
Thursday. I have had a talk with Sir Sydney Chapman [7] who
expressed a very considerable leaning towards Ottawa for the
Imperial Economic Conference, his main reason being that he thinks
it would be a magnificent gesture of the real significance of
Dominion status. I pointed out to him that a conference on
imperial economic affairs which was not attended by the British
Prime Minister or the British Chancellor of the Exchequer [8]
would be rather a farce. He said that that was a point with which
he entirely agreed, but he thought it ought to be possible to
arrange for MacDonald to attend at least part of the conference
held at Ottawa. I rather expect that you have found yourself in a
somewhat awkward position owing to the Canadian invitation [9] and
that you may not feel at all able to agree in the suggestion that
I should make any formal representations to Graham here.

The matter of MacDonald's speech yesterday in the Assembly does
not come within my province, but you may be interested to have a
note of my impressions of his manner. It seemed to me on the whole
very ineffective. Half a dozen times he worked himself up into a
passion of righteousness, and although so far as I was able to
judge, the matter of the first half of his speech was sound, he
went all to sea on the subject of Palestine and what he had to say
was so righteous as to be almost ridiculous, and this also applies
to what he had to say on the subject of tariffs.

Yours sincerely,
F. L. MCDOUGALL