My Dear P.M.,

Hankey [1] and Tyrrell [2] lunched with me yesterday and an
interesting talk followed-an hour's roaming after-lunch talk on no
set lines.

Tyrrell said that next to the Americans we were the most unpopular
people in the world-and rightly so-as we were the next biggest
hypocrites to the Americans. He agreed that the Germans dislike us
more than they dislike the French-why this was he didn't pretend
to know, but he was convinced it was so. The French were realists
compared to us-stark realists compared to the Americans. The
Americans, and then the British, were the greatest idealists and
romanticists in the world-our hearts try at least to dictate to
our heads. With the French the head always rules the heart. He
gave as an instance the Nurse Cavell [3] incident-the French said:

'She was obvious guilty of an action for which in war the penalty
was death. Why do you complain?' They couldn't understand the
point of view that even if guilty the Germans would lose more by
shooting her than by not shooting her.

Tyrrell says, by the way, in this connection that they are at the
moment trying to stop a British Film Company from producing a
particularly exaggerated and spectacular 'Nurse Cavell' film-and
he thinks without much hope of success. It will, he thinks, have a

bad effect on Anglo-German relations if it is produced.

As an example of French realism in international politics, he says
that Poincare [4] has let himself be ruled by one consideration
during his recent term of office as Prime Minister-that of
stabilising the franc. All his natural tendencies were to do
Germany down and to do everything to keep her down (as he did in
his previous term of office), but he realised that by so acting he
would inevitably depress the franc, so he has tempered his policy
towards Germany accordingly.

With regard to China, Tyrrell expressed the opinion (which I don't
suggest is a completely considered opinion or the Foreign Office
opinion) that he thought a solution of the trouble would be found
in a division of China into North China and South China-the
boundary being the Yangtse or thereabouts. He did not think that
either side would be able to 'defeat' the other. For one thing the
climate and food of the North was unacceptable to Southern
soldiers, and vice versa, and an invading force from one side is
always in consequence uncomfortable and ill at ease in the other
side's territory. The state of the railway tracks and rolling
stock was constantly getting worse and this, added to the extreme
length of the lines of communication, made a successful
subjugation of the North by the South (or vice versa) almost an
impossibility.

Kershaw [5], one of the two Australians in the League of Nations
Secretariat at Geneva, came in to see me yesterday. He was a
Rhodes Scholar, is aged about 28 or 30, speaks French and German,
and has had three years' experience of international politics in
the Minorities Section of the League. I asked him whether he had
ever considered coming into our External Affairs Department and he
said that he had and would like to be let know when there were
vacancies. He has a good name at Geneva, is the student type
rather than the diplomat, but I should think was a good fellow and
certainly should be considered when any new posts are
contemplated, or any existing posts fall vacant. He is getting
about 750 a year now with prospects of 30 a year rise. He has a
7-14-21 years contract with the League but can break at three
months' notice. He is quite happy where he is and even if he
doesn't come into our External Affairs service in the next year or
so, he would be available, I think, at any future time.

I have in the last few days reviewed what I have done in the six
weeks since I have been back in London, and have been rather
surprised to find that quite three-quarters of my time has been
taken up by C.I.D. work. There happens to have been very little of
importance going on at the Foreign Office and a great deal in the
Committee of Imperial Defence. But it is an interesting sidelight
on the work to be done here and one that I think was hardly
foreseen when I first came over here three years ago.

A big job that I would like to see Hankey take on would be the
coordination of all Intelligence under the Committee of Imperial
Defence. I have suggested it to him but he is very loath to tackle
it. The following collecting centres for Intelligence now exist-
War Office, Admiralty, Air Ministry, Foreign Office, New Scotland
Yard and the Secret Service. They all overlap to a certain extent,
and conversely when anyone like myself wants to get the whole
story about any one country, one has probably to go round them
all. The simple scheme of co-ordination that I suggest would not
mean any additional personnel or machinery other than another
C.I.D. Sub-Committee on which the heads (or delegates) of all the
Intelligence services would be represented. Their task would be to
prepare joint intelligence reports on countries and problems in a
certain order of priority that the Chiefs of Staff would lay down,
and to keep these reports up to date. It would create a liaison
between Intelligence services that really doesn't at present
exist, and, in addition, would bring into existence a central
Enquiry Office that would save me many a Cook's tour round London
looking for information.

I had a long talk with Cunliffe-Lister lately on a personal
matter. I am told by those who know about these things that he
wants a peerage very much, which means really that he is willing
to throw up the political sponge. [6] It seems a pity as he is an
intelligent fellow (although I am told not of quite the first
order) and the Lords would mean obscurity for him.

I organised a lunch yesterday at which were Sir Alan Anderson [7]
and R. Garrett [8] (of Orient Company), Sir Charles Hipwood
(Marine Department, Board of Trade) and O. C. Harvey [9] (Foreign
Office) and myself. We lunched agreeably and subsequently
discussed the position that the Italian Flag Discrimination
negotiations have reached. [10] The Italians are dragging out the
discussions interminably, and I have sent you a telegram asking
for a telegram of indignation from you if you do not receive
information from H.M.G. before the end of this month that the
Italians are being more reasonable.

Canada is in course of having rather a stupid squabble with
Mexico. Severe criticism of Mexican policy arose in Canada from
Catholic quarters on the score of the 'persecution' of Catholics
in Mexico. The Mexican Consul-General in Canada [11] I replied,
apparently too icily and pungently. Inevitable backchat followed.

Mackenzie King [12] then took the extraordinary course of sending
for the Mexican Consul-General and suggested to him that it would
be politic for him to advise his (the Mexican) Government to
recall him. The Mexican Minister for Foreign Affairs [13] sent for
the British Minister [14] in Mexico City and very rightly said
that this was all nonsense and that he hadn't the slightest
intention of recalling the Consul-General, but that if the
Canadian Government insisted, the Mexican Government would at once
set about certain reprisals, presumably of a commercial nature.

The British Minister in Mexico concludes a telegram to the Foreign
Office on the subject in the following terms, which are of some
interest:-

I informed him that if any trouble arose it could not, in view of
independence of Dominions, who have their separate diplomatic
representatives in certain countries, involve relations with Great
Britain. I would of course ask you to communicate to Canadian
Government unfortunate impression which insistence on the demand
would cause, but that although I felt sure, speaking privately,
that His Majesty's Government would use their good offices, they
could not, as he evidently expected, bring pressure on Canada as
regards her internal or external affairs.

Sir Austen [15] (I learn privately) has sent a most confidential
and carefully worded telegram to Mackenzie King, telling him that
Great Britain tried keeping the Mexicans in order by breaking off
relations with them ten years ago, but that the result was
calamitous both to our trading interests and to our nationals
resident in Mexico. We had spent many difficult years in trying to
get back to normal relations with them and then had only succeeded
in doing so by losing face to a considerable extent. So Sir
Austen, whilst recognising that this was essentially a matter for
Mr. Mackenzie King's own decision, was hopeful that Canada would
take advantage of our painful experience and end the trouble on
some reasonable note.

You can see what Chamberlain means!

In this appointment one has a very great deal to read-newspapers,
reviews, Foreign Office print, C.I.D. memoranda, etc. I send you
only portion of what I read, as one aspect of the job is sifting
the wheat from the chaff. This gets one insensibly into the frame
of mind that when one starts to read a paper, one prays that it
may have no interest or application to us, so that one may quickly
cast it into the 'out' basket and get on to something else.

In this frame of mind I moodily started to skim through a
voluminous despatch from H.M. Ambassador in Berlin [16] on
'unification' or 'centralisation' in the German Republic. It
seemed at first to be all rather unnecessary and very much the
result of his not having anything better to do. However, it was
well written and tricked out with entertaining metaphors and
similes, so I pursued it a little further. Then I became aware of
a feeling that the subject was all rather familiar and I wondered
with whom I had talked about it. Then the great light came to me
that there was quite a striking parallel between the disabilities
and struggles between the German Federal Central Government and
the German States-and between the Australian Commonwealth
Government and the Australian States. Their position under their
Republican constitution was really a fancy-dress edition of our
position. Their position is more muddled than ours but the same
type of questions preoccupy both Dr. Wilhelm Marx [17] and
yourself

I do not suggest that you should read this document, which goes to
you by this mail (Germany, Section 1 of December 20th, Foreign
Office print), as it is 18 pages long, but the parallel was an
interesting one.

In conversation with Tyrrell lately, he said that he thought that
Birkenhead [18] had the finest brain of any man he had met but
that his lack of character was a tragedy. He said that he had once
for a considerable bet kept off drink for a twelvemonth but had
got very drunk the day after. A friend, whom he encountered
afterwards and who knew him well enough to speak about it, asked
him why, in heaven's name, he had let himself go back, to which
Birkenhead replied that the past year had been complete misery to
him and, moreover, he was distinctly of the impression that when
devoid of drink he was a dull dog. His friend pointed out that it
was the universal opinion that this was certainly not the case and
that in his 'dry' year his brain had never been clearer or in
better shape. Tyrrell himself never takes anything at all now as
he has had the strength of mind to keep off it entirely, He used,
as you probably know, to have great bouts and I am told has been
in Homes on this account several times-but this apparently is now
all behind him. The comment of the one man on the other had,
therefore, some point.

I hear echoes over here, in personal letters from Henderson [19]
and Officer [20], of the efforts of the External Affairs
Department more fully to autonomise itself, with which, as you
know, I am in complete sympathy. Without wishing to overrate our
importance, it sometimes strikes me with great force that we have
a very slender staff and are making but shadowy provision for the
future. The material we are handling is really of very
considerable and increasing importance, and we are not building up
the expert staff that we will need to cope with the business in,
say, ten or fifteen years' time. I should very much like to see
the Department put on a much firmer basis than at present, and I
feel sure that it is only extreme pressure of more immediate
domestic affairs within the Commonwealth that has made it
impossible for you to give more time to this forward-looking
aspect of our work.

[Handwritten]

I enclose a handwritten letter of a secret nature.

I am, Yours sincerely,
R. G. CASEY