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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
6
Reference :-
C.O.885
21 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
3290%
4
No. 7.
MR. II. J. MACKINDER, M.P., to MR. H. FISHER.
MY DEAR FISHER,
243, St. James's Court, Buckingham Gate, S.W.,
17th February, 1910. I HAVE your letter from Melbourne dated the 31st December.* By the time this letter reaches you you will have visited New Zealand and Fiji, and will have arrived in Sydney. I note that you contemplate spending such a time in Australia as will bring you back to England at the end of June, and that you anticipate that you will require £100 more for your expenses.
The Committee have considered the matter, and in view of the limited sum now at their disposal they ask me to tell you that they cannot place this further sum to your credit.
You must therefore limit your expenses to the amount already advanced to you. Perhaps I ought to add, in order that there may be no mistake, that it is not the intention of the Committee that any portion of your salary should come out of the sum placed at your disposal for expenses. I mention this because you have charged £25 for salary in the last account which you have sent in, whereas in the accounts previously submitted you have not charged your salary, which has always been kept distinct from your expenses, and is being paid separately to your bankers in England as heretofore. The £500 at your disposal is for your expenses, quite exclusive of your salary.
The Committee would like you to calculate your expenses carefully, and stop as long in Australia as the money at your disposal will permit of. With a view to economising your time, they suggest that you should select from local sources and bring with you a collection of photographic prints, and devote as much of your time as possible to making colour sketches. On your return we could then order from Australia the photographs we require, it being understood that you will have brought us all the necessary particulars for the purchase of the right of reproduction or of the exclusive copyright, as the case may be.
You may like to know that the Indian slides, numbering 460, as they now stand finished, are a very fine collection, and will do you credit. We have filled in the lacunae from various sources, and have made much better use than at one time seemed possible of vour colour work. We have obtained some very good Sanger Shepherd reproductions, but a few of the originals have not lent themselves to good reproduction owing to lack of definite outline. I mention this because it will prob- ably be a guide to you in the allotment of your time. You have, I believe, free railway facilities, and therefore may find it possible to travel some distance in Australia, notwithstanding the limits of time and money. North Queensland would probably be remunerative from an artistic point of view, and perhaps also the fertile corner of Western Australia, but the gold mines of the interior can be adequately dealt with by photographs purchased at a distance. Otherwise I leave you to act according to your judgment, always remembering that the several States of the Commonwealth will expect to be represented. No doubt you will obtain photographs Mr. of Papua, although you do not visit that territory of the Commonwealth. Morris Miller and others will give you good advice in the selection of subjects, so that we may have in the matter you bring back a collection fully representing all the chief aspects of the country according to the Indian and other precedents.
With kind regards, yours &c.,
H. J. MACKINDER.
32902/09
No. 8.
VISUAL INSTRUCTION COMMITTEE to MR. FISHER.
DEAR MR. FISHER,
Downing Street, 4 March, 1910. MR. Mackinder has passed on to us your letter of the 16th of January,t enclosing a summary of your accounts up to that date, and asking for a further advance of £100.
I now want to settle definitely the question of keeping you in funds so as at once to meet your convenience and to preclude the possibility of confusion.
You will have learned from Mr. Mackinder's letter of the 17th of February
‡ No. 7.
• Not printed.
↑ Not printed.
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that the Committee consider £500 to be the absolute limit which they can under existing circumstances allow for expenses on this trip, apart from salary. When Mr. Mercer gave you an imprest of £500 in October last, the intention was to provide you with ample funds for the payment of your subsistence allowance and expenses until your return. The question of salary did not enter into this arrangement at all, and the Crown Agents continued to pay £25 a month to your bankers until it was seen from your accounts that you were drawing salary from your imprest.
your
I gather that you intend to continue this practice while on tour, and the matter therefore resolves itself into the payment of salary direct to you instead of into banking account. In short the Committee only wants to do whatever suits you best in the matter.
Assuming that you will arrive home before the last day of June, the amount of salary due for the period of your journey will be £200, i.e., eight months' pay from October to May, both inclusive. Salary for October and November, but not for any later period, was issued by the Crown Agents to your bankers, leaving a sum of £150 to be provided.
Consequently, in order to allow you to draw your salary without encroaching on the £500, I have arranged for the Crown Agents to send you £150 to the care of the Orient Line Offices at Melbourne. You will, of course, make your own arrange- ments with your bankers if you wish to draw the £50 paid to them.
8395
No. 9.
Yours faithfully,
W. E. NOALL.
THE MERCERS' COMPANY to THE VISUAL INSTRUCTION COMMITTEE. (Received 12 March, 1910.)
[Answered by No. 11.]
DEAR SIR,
Mercers' Hall, London, E.C., 11th March, 1910. I HAVE to inform you that the Mercers' Company have voted a sum of £105, payment of which will be made at this Office, between the hours of 2 and 3 on Tuesday, the 15th instant, on the production of the official receipt of the person authorised to receive the same.
Yours truly,
The Visual Instruction Committee of the Colonial Office.
12015/08
No. 10.
G. H. BLAKESLEY.
MINUTES OF MEETING HELD AT THE COLONIAL OFFICE ON FRIDAY, THE 18TH OF MARCH, 1910, AT 4 O'CLOCK.
PRESENT:
Sir Cecil Clementi Smith (in the chair).
Sir Philip Hutchins.
Sir Charles Lucas.
Mr. Mercer.
Mr. Mackinder.
Mr. Noall (Secretary).
The minutes of the last meeting were approved.
Mr. Mackinder reported that the organizers of the Festival of Empire had com- municated with him with reference to the exhibition of slides and the delivery of lectures at the Crystal Palace in the summer. He had asked them to communicate with him again in May, when the arrangements for the Festival would be in a more advanced stage. Sir Cecil Smith suggested that no action should be taken, pending a further application from the organizers, and that before any facilities were afforded them the Committee should be supplied with satisfactory information as to the lecturers and as to the use which would be made of the lectures and slides.
• No. 5.