Dear Mr. Bruce,

IMPERIAL ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

I have been confidentially informed that the Inter-Departmental
Committee referred to in my letter of October 22nd has now
reported to the President of the Board of Trade. [1] They have put
forward three alternative schemes again on the lines which I
mentioned in my last letter.

I saw Mr. Amery [2] on Monday and had about an hour with him. He
questioned me very closely about the views of the Oversea Members
of the Imperial Economic Committee. I put to him once again the
two points brought out in my letter to Cunliffe-Lister [3], namely
that the Imperial Economic Committee would be glad of an
opportunity
(1) to state in greater detail for the private information of His
Majesty's Government just what type of publicity they had in mind
when recommending that 65% of the 1,000,000 should be devoted to
publicity.

(2) to consider and express their confidential views upon the type
of machinery which may tend to recommend itself to His Majesty's
Government after Cabinet consideration of the Inter-Departmental
Committee's report.

Mr. Amery appeared both to be sympathetic and impressed.

I discussed planning ahead on Inter-Empire Economic relations with
Mr. Amery and he definitely stated that he approved of my ideas. I
suggested to him that he should discuss the matter with his two
Under-Secretaries Lord Clarendon [4] and Mr. Ormsby-Gore [5] and
get them to co-operate with a little group for the purpose of
getting some constructive thinking done. I also introduced Mr.

Amery to the Labour Committee's report on sweated goods which I
found he had not even seen.

In general as regards the Imperial Economic Committee, I find that
in private negotiations I rather get forced into the position of
representing the oversea representatives' opinion to (a) the
Chairman [6] (b) the Members of the Government. I can assure you
that I have not sought anything of the sort, but I presume it may
be ascribed to the fact that I am like Elijah 'very zealous'.

It involves a great deal of additional work. I am, however,
working on the general assumption that you are extremely keen on
the Imperial Economic Committee being a success and that you would
desire me to do everything in my power towards this end.

As an instance of what I mean-the question of the Banana trade
with the West Indies occupies a good deal of time in connection
with the Committee. I might say that Bananas do not interest
Australia but I think that a very wrong point of view because
great good can be done if we can show the British Government that
Dominion representatives are keen on helping Crown Colonies.

EMPIRE INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION

I am enclosing copy of a letter which I received from this newly
launched Association. It is the body which Mr. Amery and Mr.

Neville Chamberlain [7] were hoping to launch in May 1924, and
about which I gave you some information when I was in Melbourne.

The original idea was to make the body strictly non-party but if
you will glance through the names of the people associated with
it, I am sure you will come to the conclusion, as I have already
done, that it is perfectly impossible for such a body to be
regarded as anything but an adjunct to the Conservative Party. I
am quite sure that it will be regarded as being a body organized
by the Conservative Industrial Group of the House of Commons, who
incidentally are known to all Members of Parliament as the 'Forty
Thieves'. P. J. Hannon, Sir A. Shirley Benn and H. G. Williams are
all members of this Group. I think by far the strongest
personality associated with the body is Sir Hugo Hirst [8], whom I
think you know.

Yesterday Dr. Haden Guest [9] came and told me that he had been

approached by Mr. Ben Morgan [10] to join the Association and
appear at a big public meeting which they are proposing to hold in
the near future. He told me it was quite impossible as his
association with the Forty Thieves might even lead to expulsion
from the Labour Party.

As I felt very strongly on this matter, I saw Sir Hugo Hirst last
night and told him that the Empire Industries Association would be
making a very great mistake if they attempted to force the issue
of labour association at the present juncture and that they might
make an even worse mistake if they got hold of one or two ex-
Labour Leaders, such as Barnes and Roberts [11], and tried to
pretend that, on the strength of these names, they were a non-
party Organization.

We had a long talk about this and Sir Hugo came completely round
to my view and promised me that he was either going to succeed in
making the body non-party or else would sever his connection with
it but we agreed that it would take from one to two years to
convince people who matter that a body with such names associated
with it could not possibly be strictly non-party. Sir Hugo is more
optimistic than I am on this subject and hopes to be able to show
definite bona fides of a non-party nature. I told him that I
thought there was ample scope of work in steering the
Conservatives to more intelligent and active interest in Empire
affairs. This he agreed.

The association of Professor Hewins' [12] name with the
Association is also unfortunate because people will regard the
body as simply a revival of the old Tariff Reform League.

I think it is also probably true that, so far as a certain number
of the members of the Executive Committee are concerned, their
real aim is the safeguarding of home industries and that they have
placed the extension of Empire Preference in the forefront of the
battle because they know that it is a very much more popular issue
with the general public.

I will keep you informed from time to time as regards the
activities of this Organization and the way in which it develops.

BROADCAST

As you are probably aware, arrangements are being made for three
Australian Broadcast talks during the month of November. I have
been asked to do the second talk on the subject of Australian
fruit and wine. A suggestion was afterwards made that Mr. Holman
[13] should undertake this particular talk and to this I very
readily agreed, provided Mr. Holman would consult with me as to
the subject matter. Mr. Holman was quite agreeable to do this but
the British Broadcasting Co. objected on the ground that
arrangements had already been made. I understand that Mr. Holman
is to be provided with several other opportunities of giving
broadcast talks about Australia.

AUSTRALIAN DRIED FRUIT INDUSTRY

The Advertising Campaign is going well but is being somewhat
hampered by the fact that the Greek market has shown further
weakness and the price of Greek currants, superior in quality to
our own very unsatisfactory supplies, has fallen as low as 29/-
per cwt. We are getting a very considerable amount of editorial
propaganda in addition to the advertisements for which we are
paying. I do not think that you will be specially interested in
seeing this type of publicity. I am therefore only forwarding
cuttings on this subject to the Chairman of the Dried Fruit Board.

[14]

I am just completing for the Board a report on the economic
position of the Dried Fruit Industry and also a brief statement on
the present position of the preference issue. I shall forward
copies of these memoranda by the next mail.

I enclose an interesting cutting from to-day's 'Daily Mail' signed
by Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister and Mr. Neville Chamberlain, which
is likely to cause a good deal of stir at the present moment
because I understand it is going to be heavily supported by the
Press.

Yours sincerely,
F. L. MCDOUGALL