19th July, 1928
PERSONAL & CONFIDENTIAL
My dear Prime Minister,
BUSINESS MISSION
I met the Business Mission on Monday, the 16th of July, and had a fairly useful talk but an hour is a very short time in which really to deal with the many problems. I am, however, arranging to see Duckham [1] and Sir Ernest Clark [2] again and Sir Hugo Hirst [3] when he returns from his cure at Aix, so that I hope I shall have done something to educate the Mission. Actually I wasted about ten minutes off my hour by taking Dr. Orr [4] along with me, in order to make sure that the Business Mission made suitable arrangements to see him before they leave. It was arranged that Orr should spend the morning of August 3rd with them and that I should also be present.
ROME AND GENEVA
I received requests from Geneva and also a direct personal letter from Monsieur Theunis [5], the Chairman of the Economic Consultative Committee, asking for an expression of my views in regard to the conversations which are about to take place as to the relationship of these two International Bodies. [6] I enclose a copy of my reply to M. Theunis, which you may be interested to glance at.
Yours sincerely, F. L. MCDOUGALL
_1 Sir Arthur Duckham, chemical engineer prominent in the coal industry; leader of the British Economic Mission to Australia.
2 Company director; Permanent Secretary of the Treasury of Northern Ireland 1922-25; member of the British Economic Mission.
3 Chairman and Managing Director of General Electric Co. Ltd;
member of the British Economic Mission.
4 J. B. Orr, Director of the Rowett Institute for Research in Animal Nutrition, Aberdeen.
5 Georges Theunis, Belgian Minister of State.
6 i.e. the international Institute of Agriculture and the League of Nations. See Letters 164 and 165.
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