London, 9 May 1967
At the beginning of our talk Lord Casey said he wanted to speak to me about the position of the Monarchy, and it was clear that this was the thought chiefly on his mind. There was in fact nothing very new he had to say on the subject, except that he was disturbed by the degree of apathy or indifference towards the Monarchy on the part of many Australians, particularly in the rising generation, and he thought it important to do anything possible to strengthen the feeling for the Monarchy. He himself was doing what he could in his numerous public utterances and in his frequent visits to all parts of Australia.
A particular bugbear of Lord Casey’s was the Queen’s Christmas broadcast, which he criticised as being lacking in appeal or substantial content. He had spoken to Sir M. Adeane1 on the subject, who had answered that the broadcast to the Commonwealth had to be drafted with great care to avoid offending the susceptibilities of any particular part. To this Lord Casey had a ready retort in suggesting that a general message was bound to be dull and that the message should either be addressed to one Commonwealth country (or group of countries) one year and to another the next, or that (though he recognised the strain on the Queen that this would involve) she should every year undertake half a dozen or so broadcasts to the different regions. I gather that Sir M. Adeane did not smile on either of these ideas.
1 Private Secretary to the Queen, 1953–72.
[UKNA: FC0 49/78]