12th November, 1925
PERSONAL
Dear Mr. Bruce,
London Press reports on the Australian Election Campaign have been rather meagre. [1] The ‘Times’ has published a number of interesting messages but at this end of the world it is very hard to get any clear picture of happenings in Australia.
As you can easily imagine, there are a number of us who will be looking at the tape late on Saturday night and at the Sunday morning papers with the very liveliest interest. Although there has been little news of the Australian Elections, there is no doubt that everybody here regards the Commonwealth Election as being of far greater importance than the Canadian or the New Zealand Elections and the results are awaited with the very greatest interest.
You must be feeling very tired after your extremely strenuous campaign and I hope that circumstances will enable you to have a decent spell after Saturday before resuming very active work.
The ‘Daily Mail’ reported the other day that you had travelled during the last month 8,000 miles and made 71 speeches. I should imagine this must constitute something approaching a record.
Please accept my sincerest good wishes for Christmas and the New Year and please remember me kindly to Mrs. Bruce.
Yours sincerely F. L. MCDOUGALL
_1 The election, set for 14 November, was being contested largely on the question of parliamentary supremacy over ‘irresponsible’ unions.
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