My dear Prime Minister,

DELEGATION TO AUSTRALIA

On Saturday, the Dominions office informed me of the cable that
they had sent in reply to yours dealing with the suggested terms
of reference. [1] I saw Sir William Clark [2] yesterday and he
told me that they were now waiting for your agreement before
proceeding to approach individuals to become members of the
Delegation. They are, I think, clearly seized with the
desirability of securing the best possible men for this purpose.

MOTOR DELEGATION [3]

On Tuesday evening I attended the farewell dinner to the Motor
Delegation. Amery [4] and Cunliffe-Lister [5] spoke, Amery making
quite an effective speech. Each of the members of the delegation
then spoke and I must say I was rather disappointed with Sir
Archibald Boyd-Carpenter's [6] speech. He has a reputation of
being at times a first class speaker but his appointment as head
of the delegation was, I think, due to intense jealousies which
developed between the various big manufacturers and precluded the
possibility of any one leader in the industry being at the head of
a delegation of this nature.

DR. HADEN GUEST

You will have seen in the cables that Dr. Haden Guest has resigned
from the Labour Party. I have not seen Guest for some time and
must, therefore, presume that the reasons given for his
resignation are the only existing ones. [7] In many ways I am very
sorry that he has taken this step but I am, personally, more than
thankful that, for the last year, I have realised that it was
extremely undesirable to use Haden Guest as one's chief vehicle
for communicating Empire ideas to the Labour Party. Ever since the
Preference Debate in 1925 [8] when Guest made a speech which,
while satisfactory from our point of view, showed so strong an
appreciation of Tory ideas as to be damaging to him in the Party,
I felt that it would be very much better to use a man like Mr. Tom
Johnston [9] rather than Dr. Haden Guest.

Guest's political future at the present moment is quite uncertain.

EMPIRE MARKETING BOARD

In my last letter I told you that Mr. Tom Johnston was extremely
anxious that the Publicity of the Empire Marketing Board should be
more direct and vigorous and of such a nature as to make a more
effective appeal to labour and to the Cooperative movement. The
day following my writing this letter there was a meeting of the
Publicity Committee which Mr. Tom Johnston attended and at which
he strongly emphasized this point of view. A discussion followed
in which it became apparent that what was urgently needed as a
preliminary to more effective advertising was a clear realisation,
on the part of the members of the Board and of the Publicity
Committee, of the essential facts about the importance of Empire
Trade to Great Britain.

As you know this is a subject on which few people in Great Britain
have done any clear thinking and I therefore offered to prepare a
preparatory statement on the whole subject for the Publicity
Committee. I suggested that, when my statement was completed, all
the figures that I used should be officially 'vetted' by the
Statistical Department of the Board of Trade and that a special
Sub-Committee of the Publicity Committee, to consist of Major
Ormsby-Gore [10], Sir William Clark, of the Department of Overseas
Trade, and Mr. Tom Johnston, should discuss the statement and
finally prepare it for presentation to the Board. This offer was
very warmly accepted by the Committee and later by the Board
itself. it would, of course, entail a lot of additional work but I
feel that the publicity work of the Board cannot continue to be
nebulous for lack of a complete statement as to the strength of
the position which we have to urge and I am quite convinced that
it would be impossible to have obtained a statement of this nature
from the staff of the Empire Marketing Board itself or, indeed,
from any one of the British Government Departments.

'TIMES TRADE SUPPLEMENT' ARTICLE

The 'Times' were very much impressed with this article [11] and
decided to reprint it as a pamphlet. I will forward a dozen copies
to you as soon as they are available.

MR. PHILIP SNOWDEN [12]

About a week ago Mr. Philip Snowden wrote an extremely interesting
article in the 'Daily News' on the Moscow Attack on the British
Trade Unions. Coming from such a source, I feel that this article
deserves very careful consideration. I enquired and found that the
Intelligence Department at Australia House had already forwarded a
copy to you but I think it possible that your personal attention
may not have been directed to the article. I am, therefore,
sending two copies to you. I have forwarded a copy to Mr. Latham
[13] and two to Mr. Gepp. [14] It seems to me possible that
circumstances might arise in which a reprint of this article by
Philip Snowden might serve a very useful purpose.

PARLIAMENTARY QUESTIONS

I enclose a series of Parliamentary questions and answers, some of
which you may consider to be of interest.

'LONDON WEEKLY'

I enclose copy of 'London Weekly' dated 25.2.27.

Yours sincerely,
F. L. MCDOUGALL