(Due to arrive Canberra 3.8.29)

My dear P.M.,

I met Sidney Webb in his new role as Lord Passfield last week. [1]
He is a pleasant and genial old man who talked away happily for
half-an-hour. A doctrinaire rather than a 'doer', who has embraced
Socialism because of his altruistic pity for the under-dog, and
who has never encountered the difficulties of putting his
doctrines into effect.

I have now met all the Labour Cabinet with whom I am likely to
have to deal and they have all expressed themselves as being ready
to help. They have nearly all used the same form of words-'I will
tell my Private Secretaries to give you access to me whenever you
want it'.

I was reminded in the Dominions Office this week that H.M.G. is
faced with the problem of finding Governors-General for Australia,
New Zealand and South Africa-all during 1930; and that this was
giving them some concern as there were very few applicants. I was
asked to try and discover privately if Somers would be a welcome
name to suggest to you for Governor-General, or if the fact that
he had been a Victorian State Governor would tell against him-
particularly in New South Wales. [2] If you have anything to say
in the above regard, I know any suggestions would be well received
and treated in the greatest confidence.

I send in another letter copy of the Chiefs of Staff Report
(1929). The Labour Government were very non-committal about
accepting it-as it is based on the political premises of the
Conservative Government. They therefore merely 'took note', and
reserved themselves the right of revision of the political basis
of the Report.

I write on the Air route to Australia in another letter. The gist
of it is that it is most unlikely that the route will be through
from England to Singapore before the end of 1931. India is the
stumbling block and apparently there is no means of overcoming the
reluctance of the Indian legislature to find the money to
subsidise the route from Karachi to Rangoon any sooner. This means
that it is not much use your getting the Australia-Singapore route
going much before the end of 1931.

It is still possible that the Labour Government may take this
matter up and find some means of expediting the Indian section. I
am to see Lord Thomson (Air Minister) next week and will keep the
matter alive.

In January last Chamberlain [3] sent an important despatch to
Lampson [4] in Peking asking him if the time was not ripe for a
'drive' in favour of British trade in China and asking for his
observations in the matter of loans to China, etc. Lampson now
replies (in print going to you by this mail) in the general tone
that he does not recommend any positive action on the part of
British interests at present-in other words, he doesn't think the
time is ripe.

Not having heard from you, I gathered that you had no specific
points that you wanted included in the Queen's letter to go to you
by Dame Janet Campbell [5] on Maternity and Child Welfare. I got
in touch with Dr. Park [6], Medical Officer at Australia House,
and together we made out a suitable draft letter. I now understand
that the Queen is going to sign this letter to you conveying her
satisfaction that the Commonwealth Government is giving increased
attention to the national problems of maternity and child welfare.

This is in a form in which you can give it to the press, and it
ought to give the movement a certain amount of fillip.

I hear confidentially that Morris [7] has decided to sell his
special overseas six-cylinder 21/60 h.p. Wolseley closed saloon
car at 285 f.o.b. works England to Australian and overseas
dealers-which will mean, I understand, a selling price of about
400 in Australia-if the local dealers are willing to take a
reasonably small profit. Morris's best price to British dealers is
to be 425 less commission or 340 nett. I have tried this car and
it is my definite impression that it is a good, full-sized and
full-powered machine with many up-to-date refinements, and I think
that a selling price of 400 in Australia will be the first real
attempt at competition that the Americans will have encountered.

It had been arranged that I was to meet Morris at lunch this week,
but J. H. Thomas's [8] Secretary got to hear of it and Thomas is
now taking my place at lunch-and I am to meet Morris later.

I enclose, as a matter of interest, a set of the new Irish Free
State coins.

I have managed to get five or six hundred pounds more money for
Wilkins [9], and he has himself got another thousand, so that his
financial worries in respect of the coming season's work are
behind him.

There is nothing but a mass of detail to tell you about the Mawson
Expedition [10] arrangements at this end. The specifying in detail
of an aeroplane, ship and aeroplane wireless, echo-sounding gear,
ship's laboratory, trawling gear-and all the rest of it-all come
into the day's work.

All concerned (in which is included myself-and I expect yourself)
are heartily tired of the controversy over the purchase of outside
phosphates. I managed to get the Dominions Office to compromise a
good deal in the matter generally, but failed to budge them over
the necessity for unanimity between Commissioners in the matter of
total annual tonnage of outside phosphates to be purchased. If
finance was not such a bogey at present, it would seem to me to be
worth while considering buying H.M.G. out of the Nauru agreement
and giving them an undertaking to supply this country with a
stipulated proportion of the Nauru and Ocean tonnage on a 'cost
plus x' basis, if and when they required it. There would be
opposition to this, of course, but we might get away with it. [11]

The Labour Government have not yet decided what they will do about
Singapore. One fears the worst but hopes for the best.

They are to make a cut of a million odd in the Admiralty vote for
this year, cut out two submarines and suspend construction on two
cruisers-as a gesture to the Americans pending discussion on Naval
Limitation. The Admiralty are rather relieved that it is not more
sweeping.

The place is alive with rumour and prognostications which I will
not bother you with-a natural corollary of the extreme secrecy
which is the order of the day.

They conduct Cabinet meetings with Hankey [12] present up to a
certain point, when they ask him to leave-so that my usual
reliable sources of information are not so productive as usual.

The Hudson's Bay Company has asked McDougall [13] and myself
unofficially to assist them in the drafting of a letter to you
which will open the question of the formation of a company to
develop and exploit the Australian sector of the Antarctic. We
have agreed and I have a draft prepared which, after discussion
with McDougall, we will pass to them, making it clear that it
represents personal views and is in no way committal. If we had
not done this they would have asked for a Charter and all sorts of
absurdities that you could not have looked at and which would only
have delayed the negotiations. I have put down what is reasonable
and which I think you might be willing to accept-but I don't know
that the Hudson's Bay people will accept it.

Since the above, I have seen Lord Thomson (the new Air Minister
whom I knew previously). He asks me to tell you that you can count
on his active assistance in the matter of expediting the air route
to Australia, and he is to consult his colleagues at the India
Office and Dominions Office. Lord Irwin [14] arrives in London in
a fortnight and is to be importuned in the matter.

I am, Yours sincerely,
R.G. CASEY