(Due to arrive Canberra 3.5.29)

My dear P.M.,

Easter has cut this past week in half The Easter holidays are
regarded as sacred dies non in this country, no doubt because they
give people the first taste of spring after the long winter. And
the winter this year has been a hard one.

One is being constantly reminded of the many Imperial anachronisms
that exist. One reads and hears them debated, in many cases most
ably, by jurists and publicists in this country and abroad. The
most recent example is that of Mr. J.H. Morgan, K.C., in the
Rhodes Lecture of a fortnight ago, copy of which I enclose. [1] (I
have already sent a copy to the External Affairs Department.)
This is a most able disquisition on the niceties of Imperial
constitutional relations-a subject that delights the precise and
tidy legal mind. But the reiterated discussion of the
technicalities of the Imperial position leaves me rather cold. It
has got to be discussed, of course, and paper anachronisms have
got to be rectified when they become too glaringly out of step
with present day actualities.

The last Imperial Conference was the beginning of this
rectification and the next will concern itself with a bit more
tidying up. But the Empire is not strengthened or weakened by such
matters. If the Empire exists anywhere, it exists in the minds of
men.

It seems to me that the next Imperial Conference will be the
proper time and place for a broad statement of old-time patriotic
imperialism on the part of some Dominion Prime Minister (which, of
course, means you) putting the legal niceties in their proper
position-leaving the lawyers to join the ends of all the little
threads they like-stating again quite clearly that the obligations
of this country to the Dominions are a counterpart of the
obligations of the Dominions to this country.

I know that you will say that one must not take the autonomy talk
in South Africa and the Irish Free State at face value, and that
these dominions would be just as loyal to this country in time of
war as they have ever been. But I think this point of view can be
stressed rather too much. The 'doubtful' Dominions have been
getting rather too doubtful for comfort in this last year or so
and it seems to me that some corrective is necessary.

Re Antarctic sealing. I have met and talked to C. V. Sale,
Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. He confirms what I said last
week [2] and there is nothing new at present to tell you-other
than that he is also interested in developing the fur seal
industry off Tasmania. So I have turned McDougall [3] on to them.

Following ancient precedent and in a belated attempt to revive the
glories of the past, would not a good name for an Antarctic
development company be 'Company of Australian Adventurers Trading
into the Antarctic'!

I enclose leading article from the 'Times' of 3rd April, reviewing
your past session.

I enclose cutting from 'Financial Times' of 3rd April summarising
General Motors' report for 1928. They are by far the biggest
single organisation making a line of cars in America, and
Australia is unfortunately the biggest individual market for
American cars in the world-so that what they have to say about
'opportunity for progress in overseas countries' has a meaning for
Australia-we will probably be included in a drive to secure more
business to compensate them for the threatened flattening of their
domestic sales curve ...

Although the Corporation has a dominating position in practically
all overseas countries, it is hoped and believed that this
position can be strengthened still further. The policy of making
the Corporation a real factor in the industrial life of each
country in which it operates will be continued. This means the
establishment by the Corporation of local organisations supported
by assembly plants as increasing volume justifies.

Wilkins is going on with his submarine Arctic project [4] in spite
of the damper that I tried to put on it by telegram and letter.

You will have seen all about it in the press.

The world is awaiting with some anxiety the proposals of the new
United States Administration with regard to their customs tariff.

There are rumours that they will include increases in items which
will affect Canada. It would probably be a very good thing from an
Empire point of view if the American market were to be made more
difficult for Canada. It might make her rather more sensible of
the existence of the Empire.

The Principal Supply Officers Committee (P.S.O.) of the Committee
of Imperial Defence is (even after years of work) only at the
beginning of a scheme of industrial mobilisation. Their task is to
discover what raw materials will be necessary for the prosecution
of a major war-both for the armed forces and for the civilian
population. Then they have to ascertain which of these materials
come from abroad-do a little subtraction and find the quantity and
the type of essential imports in war. This, together with such
problems as investigation into sources of essential supply within
the Empire-the possibilities of substitutes-schemes for the
apportionment of materials between civil and military needs-and
related problems, will make work for many years. Similar work is
going on-with varying enthusiasm-in the Dominions. The final
result may possibly be an imperial balance sheet of war
necessities and resources-but this is a long way ahead. The task
is being tackled by the part time effort of individuals in
Government Departments-and in the last few weeks by the enlistment
of the promised co-operation of Imperial Chemical Industries.

Obviously this is only the first step in getting all the leaders
of industry interested in the problem and represented in the
investigation-which is really a huge national-possibly later
imperial-stocktaking. The initiative for all this comes from this
office-and I can tell you (or your advisers) as much or as little
as you want to know about it-either in the shape of official
documents or in more human form-but as it is rather out of my
normal line of activity, I will not send you more on the subject
unless you tell me that you want it.

The question of the style and tone of official communications is
an interesting one. Much reading of the ordinary coldly official
documents and telegrams leaves me rather flat and uninterested.

The vulgar human touch-the lowly simile-the touch of everyday
slang-in a telegram or despatch wakes one up to the fact that the
fellow at the other end is, strangely, a human being who has
something to communicate to you and is not above underlining what
he has to say in a conversational way. Lampson [5] (in China) and
Humphrys [6] (lately in Afghanistan) have developed this common
touch, and whatever they have to say is much more readily
understood in consequence. I am all for the vulgarisation of
official communications-and I look forward with enthusiasm to the
far distant future when some healthy-minded diplomat will find
that he cannot adequately colour what he has to convey without the
use of the homely expression 'bloody'!

For your most confidential information-the Irish Free State have
broken out in a new place. They have written privately to the
Dominions Office saying that they intend shortly to make known
their intention officially to submit documents direct to the King
for ratification and signature, and not through the Dominions
Office. They say that as they are only a few hours away from
London, they propose that their President or another Minister
should visit London for this purpose quarterly or whenever it is
necessary and have audience with the King, no British Minister
being present. This is their means of avoiding the question of the
King being advised on matters that affect their Dominion, on the
advice of a member of the British Cabinet. As you will realise,
this is a difficult hole for Amery [7] to get out of, and at the
moment the Dominions Office can think of nothing to say, other
than that the King will have to be assured that the acts they
contemplate asking him to ratify have no effect, even indirectly,
on any other part of the Empire.

So that the King may be thrown back on to the advice of his
Private Secretary, Lord Stamfordham, and the position is liable to
arise about which I wrote you in January 1928-and from which
letter I venture to quote a paragraph:-

Now that we have imperial equality all round and the King is to
take the advice of his Dominion Ministers on Dominion matters on
its merits, and without (at least obviously) submitting their
proposals to his local Ministers in London for their advice and
approval-now very much more than ever before should the King have
wise personal counsellors. The rather artificial degree of
imperial equality that you enshrined in print at the last Imperial
Conference is likely to grow into reality with the passage of
possibly only a very few years. As the feeling grows, so will the
resentment at British Ministers advising the King on Dominion
matters. From this one gets to imagining the King of the future
surrounded by a body of wise (and not necessarily aged) imperial
elder statesmen-a real 'Privy Council'-drawn from the whole
Empire-people whose names and whose service to the Crown place
them above party and above reproach. [8]

A man in the British Embassy at Washington sends me enclosed
cutting from the New York Times, describing the splendid effort of
the Australian boys on tour in America [9]-they managed somehow or
other to run an Australian flag up the Senate flagpole in
Washington while Hoover was being installed into office!

The boys seem to have made a splendid impression from what I hear
and from the enthusiastic press cuttings that I have been sent. My
friend says: 'I hear on every side that it is not only their
physique that is greatly admired, but also their extraordinarily
good manners. This I believe to be a matter in which American
youth has much to learn, and it is a secret satisfaction to hope
that Australia may be the means of teaching the latter how to
behave.' I have also heard from other quarters the same vague
rumours as one heard when the last party of boys visited the
States-that the man in charge of them seemed to expect as a matter
of right that contributions should be made towards the funds of
the expedition by all and sundry in America wherever they went-and
that this became not far short of begging their way. I don't
suppose you have any control over matters of this sort, but it
sounds unpleasant, although I have nothing more than hearsay to go
on.

I am enclosing to you a copy of a most pathetic document-a
pamphlet sent by Tom Jones [10] to his friends and to those who
contributed to the fund for the memorial to his small boy who was
killed a few months ago by a motor car. The fund has been given to
Harlech College, an institution founded by the energy and
enthusiasm of Tom Jones for the education of working men. T.J.'s
small boy was, I think, the most outstanding child that I have
encountered. It is a most heartrending document but I think you
would like to read it if you happen to have time.

You will be interested to read in attached cutting of Australia's
connection with the origin of the war.

I am, Yours sincerely,
R.G. CASEY