Cablegram 35 22 May 1939,
PERSONAL FOR BRUCE MOST SECRET
Please advise His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom that the Australian Government has now further considered questions which arise in relation to a British Agreement with U.S.S.R. [1] while we attach great importance to preserving friendship with Japan and would therefore be unhappy about any Russian Agreement which applied to the Far East, we agree that the opportunity should not be lost to make an effective agreement between Great Britain and U.S.S.R. which would reinforce the Anti-Aggression Pact with Poland and which would strengthen in particular Turkey and Roumania. Short of a positive demand to expand the Agreement to the Far East we think that Russian negotiations should not be allowed to fail.
MENZIES
_
1 No record of a Cabinet discussion has been found.
_
[AA: A981, GREAT BRITAIN 8B, iv]