Dear Mr. Bruce,

POLITICAL

Conservative

The Imperial Affairs Committee of the Conservative Party has
apportioned the various resolutions of the Imperial Economic
Conference among its members for the purpose of arranging the
speeches in the House of Commons when the full dress debate on the
Economic Conference Resolutions takes place and I have been in
touch with each of the groups that are dealing with the preference
questions in which Australia is interested, going carefully into
details with them, providing them with fresh memoranda and
particulars and meeting them individually and collectively to
discuss these memoranda after they had had an opportunity of
digesting them.

Mr. Amery [1] and Mr. Ormsby-Gore [2] are dealing with the
Imperial Economic Committee; Sir Evelyn Cecil, Sir Henry Cowan and
two other members, whom I do not think you know, have had Dried
and Canned Fruits allocated to them. The Wine Sub-Committee has
not yet been formed.

I have strongly represented to all the Unionist Members with whom
I have been in contact that the very least the Unionists owe the
Dominions is to put every one of their members either in to the
Division Lobby or to see that they are paired when the preference
proposals come before the House. If every Unionist Member of
Parliament voted in favour of preference proposals, it would
require on a full house 43 votes to carry any of the proposals and
as there might be a certain number of absentees from the Liberal
and Labour Benches, an entirely solid Unionist vote would give us
a sporting chance because there is almost sure to be some cross
voting from Labour and Liberals.

Mr. Amery asked me to communicate with you by cable with the idea
of getting the Australian Chambers of Commerce to carry
resolutions which could be cabled here so as to indicate a very
definite feeling in Australia in favour of the preference. I,
therefore, cabled you on the 9th April in the following terms:-

Amery suggests Australian Chambers of Commerce should cable over
hoping that the resolutions Economic Conference will be ratified
by Parliament and their conviction that this would lead to greater
development of mutual trade. Am hoping to get Empire Study
Committee formed in Parliamentary Labour Party.

Sir Fredric Wise [3] has been asked by the Unionists to speak on
the monetary exchange problems between Britain, Australia and New
Zealand when the question arises in the House and he tells me that
he proposes to take the line that the present exchange
difficulties could be rectified if Australia were to acquire
treasury bills or other short dated securities in London as
against currency in Australia.

Liberal

As the result of a very interesting lunch that I had with a
Manchester and Liverpool Labour Member of Parliament, Mr. E. D.

Simon, who is a Manchester Liberal Member, invited me to meet
Lancashire Liberals at dinner in the House of Commons and discuss
with them the preference question. There were about 10 Members of
Parliament present, including the Rt. Hon. C. F. G. Masterman and
several representatives from the Liberal Headquarters. We had a
most interesting evening and I was very pleased with the way in
which they received the information that I was able to place
before them. I think that they were at least convinced that the
preferences that Australia now gives are of great benefit to
British trade. They expressed considerable interest in the
Imperial Economic Committee and several of them stated that they
were prepared to vote in favour of the preferences that mean no
increase in taxation.

The Liberal Colonial Group are hopelessly at variance on the
question of the right attitude for the Party to adopt on the
preference question and I anticipate that the official attitude of
the Party will be one of entire disapproval of any of the
preferences that involve new duties but that, on the other hand, I
rather anticipate that Members of the Party will be allowed to
vote with the Whips Off on the question of preferences that mean a
decrease in duty only. I anticipate that there will be a few
Liberals who will be prepared to vote for the whole of the
preference proposals.

You will be interested to know that, at the present moment, there
are about 20 Liberals whom well founded rumour credits with the
intention of crossing the floor and joining with the Conservative
Party at some opportune moment.

Labour

Since I last wrote to you, I have seen very little of Cabinet
Ministers, with the exception of one long conversation with Mr.

Sidney Webb [4] at which I was unable to extract from him any
information as regards the Government's intentions, but I lunched
today with Miss Margaret Bondfield [5], who told me that so far
the Government had not definitely made up their mind as to what
attitude to take on the whole question of the Imperial Economic
Conference Resolutions.

You will be interested to hear that Miss Bondfield, who is a force
to be reckoned with in the Labour Party, has become immensely keen
on sound migration schemes and that a number of men on the left
wing of the Party, including Mr. George Lansbury for instance,
have become convinced that big migration schemes are essential.

It is extremely difficult to form any definite opinion as to what
measure of support the preferences will receive from the Labour
Party at the present stage but I am quite convinced that the
Labour Party is more open to really examine the facts of the
situation than is the Liberal Party. There is a less dogmatic
prejudice among the Labour people and I am quite sure that the
right type of propaganda carried on with them would bear, within a
reasonable space of time, interesting fruit.

Dr. Haden Guest has given me a definite assurance that, directly
after the Easter Recess, he will form an Empire Study Group inside
the Parliamentary Labour Party. He tells me that he has sounded a
number of his fellow members on the subject and that they are
quite in sympathy with the idea.

PRESS

The Nineteenth Century have accepted from Lord Sheffield (who is a
most ardent old fashioned free trader) an article in which your
article in the February Issue is replied to but the Editor was
anxious that Lord Sheffield's article should not be published
without a rejoinder and therefore asked Sir Joseph Cook [6]
whether he could undertake to reply to Lord Sheffield in the same
issue. Sir Joseph asked me to do this work and I came to the
conclusion that the best way to do it was to avoid all appearance
of having seen Lord Sheffield's article but to cover his points by
writing about the aftermath of the Economic Conference. I am
enclosing a copy of the article which Sir Joseph Cook has approved
of and signed [7]

On April 10th the Times published from Mr. W. H. Dawson a letter
taking you to task for misquoting Cobden [8] in your opening
speech at the Economic Conference. I enclose a copy of Mr.

Dawson's letter and also copy of an answer to Mr. Dawson which
appeared to-day under the signature of Sir Joseph Cook. [9]

I particularly desire to draw your attention to an extraordinarily
interesting letter which appeared in today's Times signed by Lord
Weir. [10] I think that you will be very interested to read it
because it places the industrial position in Britain in a very
clear light.

I am also enclosing a copy of a letter to the Manchester Guardian
from Senator Wilson [11], the latter part of which I think will
amuse you. I have marked the portion that you might care to read
in blue pencil.

Yours sincerely,
F. L. MCDOUGALL