3rd March, 1927
PERSONAL & CONFIDENTIAL
My dear Prime Minister,
You will doubtless remember the British Empire Products Number which the ‘Times Trade Supplement’ issued last April. [1] It was quite a remarkable production, the best thing of its sort that has, I think, ever been issued. Thirty thousand copies were printed and the number steadily ran out of print, a large number being sold in the Dominions and Colonies.
The Editor [2] has decided to issue the British Empire Products Number for 1927 and to make the date of issue in May so that it will appear just before Empire Day.
The Editor has written to ask me whether you would consent to write the opening article for the Number. He suggests some 1,500 words and he further suggests that nothing could be more appropriate to a British Empire Products Supplement than an article from you under the title ‘Men, Money and Markets’.
As this Supplement certainly circulates throughout all parts of the Empire and is studied by British manufacturers and traders, I very much hope that you will feel disposed to agree. Anticipating your agreement, I have put together some ideas which might meet with your approval and which I enclose herewith. My draft runs to about 1,400 words. Naturally the Editor will desire to know whether you can agree to doing this article for him and it will,
therefore, be necessary for you to send me a brief cable on receipt of this letter stating whether you can forward an article.
If you agree it would be desirable for the article to catch the first mail after the receipt of this communication and it was with that point in mind that I prepared the draft. [3]
Major Walter Elliot [4] has promised to write an article on Research and the Empire and I think that Captain Ormsby-Gore [5] will probably agree to do one on the publicity work of the Empire Marketing Board.
Last year you received a bound copy of this Supplement so that if you desire I am sure you can refer to the previous issue to see what it was like.
Yours sincerely, F. L. MCDOUGALL
_1 See note 7 to Letter 64.
2 T. S. Sheldrake.
3 Bruce agreed and cabled some alterations to the draft. See Letter 106.
4 Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Scotland; Chairman of the Research Committee of the Empire Marketing Board.
5 William Ormsby-Gore, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Colonies; Chairman of the Publicity Committee of the Empire Marketing Board.
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