(Due to arrive Melbourne-12.6.26)

My dear P.M.,

I write hurriedly to catch a mail which goes out just a few hours
after the General Strike [1] has ended.

It was a half-hearted strike from the very first. Although it
caused a good deal of inconvenience and monetary loss, it never
really disturbed the life of the country. Everyone took the
inconveniences well-they swelled a vague remembrance of the war
period without its dangers. No one went hungry and no one who had
urgent need to move from one place to another had much difficulty
in so doing.

There was some intimidation of volunteer workers in the poorer
districts, a few motor cars were turned over and a few heads
broken, and the first lesson learnt has been that adequate
protection has to be organised to ensure that volunteers are not
interfered with.

I will send you later a brief account of the Government's
organisation to meet the General Strike situation. It has proved
very effective. Its few weak points have been shown up. A
confidential report is being produced by H.M.G. which I will try
to send you-or at least a summary of the important points.

Hankey [2] is very pleased. He always said that it was evident
that the General Strike had to happen to clear the air. It has all
gone, he says, according to plan.

On the surface at any rate there is not much evidence that the
Communists have had much direct hand in it all. Except with regard
to money. The Communists, no doubt, had a good deal of indirect
influence in the calling of the strike in the first place, in the
persons of their members who have permeated the Unions and their
Executives. But they never advertised themselves as Communists.

However, I expect Arcos (the Russian Trading Company) will have to
look to themselves now as H.M.G. will be interested to find out
how far they lent their aid.

2. As a sidelight on events. I went in to see Tom Jones [3] on
Friday 7th May and found him in what was for him a very agitated
state of mind. He had just come back from an interview with
Winston [4] and had not got over being appalled at the lack of
wisdom of his point of view about the General Strike position.

Winston had apparently waved his arms and engulfed T.J. in a flood
of eloquence as to the necessity for troops and armoured cars,
parades of forces and all the rest of it. 'We are at war' said
Winston 'and must take all measures to defeat the other side.' The
provocative nature of such measures had quite passed him by. T.J.

commented on the interview as a brilliant example of a fiery
eloquence, quite untempered by balance or statesman-like
judgement.

One disability that H.M.G. labour under is a lack of good
negotiators in their ranks. Of the people who have been in the
forefront of the negotiations, Steel-Maitland [5] (Minister of
Labour) and Lane-Fox [6] (Minister of Mines) are said to be no
good at all. The Prime Minister [7] himself is a good steadying
influence on any conference, and undoubtedly his character has a
good effect on the country generally at such a time as this. But
in the quick to and fro of a Conference he has some difficulty in
keeping up, and is rarely able to be on the spot with suggestion
or timely compromise. Birkenhead [8] was used a good deal in the
48 hours that preceded the strike and is said to have been very
useful.

Tom Jones has been in the forefront of the negotiations the whole
time and has had little rest.

3. Winston's main preoccupation has been the organising and
running of the Government newspaper. When the Strike started, the
press generally decided that they couldn't produce anything more
than small sheets. They couldn't agree amongst themselves as to
the publication of a joint paper by pooling their staffs and they
eventually asked Winston if he would not publish a Government
paper, which he, of course, jumped at. Practically all the papers
lent men and paper and the 'Morning Post' lent building and plant.

Winston was installed in the editorial chair and the 'British
Gazette' came into being overnight. The 'Times' did least as
regards help, and managed themselves to produce quite a good copy
each day. It is felt that Winston overreached himself a little in
the type of paper he produced-but that seems inevitable with a man
of his temperament.

4. As a small contribution towards the show, my car and man have
done over a thousand miles during the week in delivering bundles
of the Government Gazette to Wales.

5. I was a guest at a most interesting feast at your Middle Temple
ten days ago, at one of their rare functions. Birkenhead, Reading
[9], Amery [10], several High Commissioners, the permanent Under-
Secretaries of State of several departments and a few other guests
connected with the Dominions were asked to an 'Empire Grand Day'
dinner. It was a particularly pleasant function in the old Middle
Temple Hall, which you will remember. One was surrounded by judges
who unbent in a remarkable manner. Reading looked extremely well
and youthful. It sounds like a fairy tale to think that he first
went to India as a ship's boy and the next time as Viceroy.

Birkenhead was rather shabby looking but very sprightly and young
and in particularly good form.

In the Parliament room after dinner, Reading sat underneath the
painting of himself which was done ten years ago, and looked a
better man than his portrait.

Judge Horridge [11], who escorted me through the proceedings,
remarked to Birkenhead what a wonderful thing it was that Reading
had such a collection of Grand Crosses. Birkenhead said: 'Oh, yes,
he's well covered-in fact, when he's got them all on, he hasn't
got to wear any other clothes.' [12]

6. In conversation with McDougall [13] lately, he tells me he has
written you his ideas on the value of the top dressing of pasture
lands and the use of submarine clover. Before I left Australia, I
had some considerable interest in the growth of the practice of
using superphosphate on both sheep and dairy pastures, and was
convinced that it was of great value. It is not a universal
panacea, as it has definite limits in the type of land on which it
can profitably be used, and, more important still, it depends on
the rainfall, which should be something not much less than 17-18
inches.

My angle of considering the matter was connected with the sale, in
N.S.W., of superphosphate manufactured at Port Kembla, for which
the Company [14] wanted an increased market. We did not go into
the business until we were convinced of its real value.

The farmers, dairy farmers and pastoralists wanted a lot of
convincing at first and, during the first two years, the sales of
super for this purpose were very small, in spite of keen
propaganda and the free gift of many tons of fertiliser for trial
by representative farmers.

You could judge of the growth of the practice by getting a return
from the various State Fertiliser Associations (through the
Phosphate Commission) of the yearly tonnage sold in each State
over the last six years for purpose of top dressing of pastures.

You will, I feel sure, find that the curve is steeply growing.

As long ago as 1922, from the point of view of a fertiliser
manufacturer, I looked to pasture fertilising as the means whereby
we would vastly increase our sales. From the national point of
view, the great extension of this practice means greater
possibilities for closer settlement, and greater production of
dairy products and of wool from a given area.

And as far as I know, Australia is leading the way in this pasture
fertilising. Until I left Australia, I had not been able to hear
of any other country that was ahead of us-or even level with us-in
this new departure, except possibly a limited area of New Zealand.

7. I asked a man in the Navy recently if Australia was a popular
station for naval people to be sent to. He said quite seriously:

'Well, it used to be popular for its own sake, now it's popular as
a means of avoiding the Atlantic Fleet!'

8. The Athenaeum Club recently took in a number of the members of
the United Service Club while the latter club was being cleaned.

When they first arrived, two black-coated old gentlemen were
talking and one asked the other who all these new people were.

'Oh, they're soldiers and sailors from across the way-you can tell
by their brutal faces!'

I am, Yours sincerely,
R. G. CASEY