847.00/264
Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of European Affairs (Moffat)
Mr. Keith Officer, Australian Counselor of the British Embassy, called on me this afternoon. He told me that according to all the latest indications the Lyons Government would come out victorious in the general election next week. He thought they might lose four or five seats at a maximum, which would still leave them with a comfortable majority. The recent elections in Victoria have shown slight labor gains in the city, but the country districts had remained firmly nationalist. The only drawback that he saw from a close election was that it might make the Government somewhat timid in the future.
I told him that in view of the attitude of the labor party there was no need for the Government to show timidity in withdrawing the trade diversion measures. Mr. Officer thought that there would be relatively little delay. He said that since Sir Henry Gullett had left the Cabinet nobody was very keen on the maintenance of this policy. I remarked that Colonel White since taking over Sir Henry Gullett’s portfolio had shown himself fully as “hard boiled”, and furthermore he had reiterated just the other day in the House that he expected that out of the trade diversion program would come a trade agreement with the United States. Mr. Officer said that whatever Mr. White’s personal views might now be, his Department was thoroughly fed up with trade diversion and would be in favor of change.
[Page 151]Mr. Officer said that he had written quite fully after both our previous talks.22 He further stated that he would telegraph early next week when the election returns are safely in, referring to these letters and urging that the Government lose no time in reversing its policy. He said that there might not be prospects of negotiations immediately, but that if Australia moved he thought there were pretty good prospects of “talks”. I reiterated that Australia should move just as quickly as was humanly possible as, I said, we were anxious to clean up the situation and it was impossible to deal with the Australians while these measures were being applied.
- Memoranda by Mr. Moffat of conversations of September 18 and October 8, not printed.↩