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Downing Street. Dated 20 September, 1909 - Is directed by the Earl of Crewe to say that they do not have a report by H. R. Palmer on totemism among the Hausas in Nigeria, but that he believes the documents are accessible and he has no objection to Frazer's use of extracts from them.

Trinity College, Cambridge. Dated 23rd May 1910 - Thanks him for his copy of 'Totemism and Exogamy', grieves that [Lorimer] Fison and [A. W.] Howitt have not lived to read it; had a visit from [John] Roscoe; and discusses ways he has supported Roscoe's candidature: he reminded [Lord] Crewe of Frazer's application for Roscoe, and wrote to Sir Kenneth Muir Mackenzie recommending Roscoe; notes that he knows the Chancellor [Lord Loreburn], but thinks it more effective to approach Muir Mackenzie.

India Office, Whitehall, S.W.—His complaint against the Fair Wages Advisory Committee is that it stops short of giving the advice necessary to produce harmony between Government Departments. Such advice cannot shelter the contracting parties, who are free to to accept or reject its advice. He accepts that Buxton is not responsible for the Committee, but points out that the Board of Trade always answers questions on in it in the House and that it often uses Board of Trade paper. The opinion communicated in the Secretary of State’s letter, which was written with Montagu’s approval, was explicitly stated to be subject to Sir George Askwith’s approval. The letter was only written because of the Committee’s delay, and Buxton took action without waiting for the India Office’s reply to Askwith’s letter of 8 December. He will not be sorry if Buxton consults the Cabinet on the matter, since, if Buxton’s views of the Committee hold good and if future negotiations with the Committee proceed along similar lines, it is not as useful a body as it might be. But he hopes Buxton will not act till the Secretary of State [for India] is present to answer his contention.

(Carbon copy?)

India Office.—Refers to a long controversy which ended with a letter from the Secretary of the Advisory Committee to the India Office on the 8th, pointing out that the Committee’s reluctance to give advice limits their usefulness to contracting Departments. It is generally unsafe to rely on an agreement between masters and men in one firm, and the fact that this existed would not make it unnecessary for them to refer to the Committee for advice. On the 7th Sir Richmond Ritchie wrote to the Secretary of the Committee suggesting that, subject to any remarks by Sir George Askwith, the Secretary of State [Lord Crewe] believed that it would be unnecessary for the Committee to consider the case further. As the delay in obtaining a reply had been so long, they [the India Office] were anxious to see if the Advisory Committee could advise whether, in view of the present situation at Dowlais, they should be safe in accepting tenders from the firm. The Secretary replied conveying what amounts to a refusal of the Chairman to advise on this question, and asking if they still required an answer to the question of 23 August. Montagu was drafting a reply to the effect that he must require an answer, as he could obtain no advice from the Committee as to whether such answers could safely be dispensed with; but before he could send it Mr [J. M.] Robertson gave an answer in the House yesterday which he believes should not have been given before his own reply had been received. He understands that the Committee is aggrieved that the India Office has already permitted the firm to tender to them. He regrets this, and has reprimanded his Stores Department. The question is now likely to die, and he intends to inform Hardie that, as an arrangement has been made at Dowlais satisfactory to all parties, he has instructed that orders may again be placed with Guest, Keen, & Nettlefold at their Dowlais Works.

(This draft was made on the 11th, but the fair-copy was not sent till the following day.)

Archerfield House, Dirleton.—He enjoyed his walks with her at Alderley. Discusses his visit to Crewe Hall, and refers to his companions at Archerfield.

British Embassy, Paris - Thanks her for the invitation to the Marquess of Crewe to the conference [in honour of Sir James Frazer] at the Institut International d'Anthropologie; the Ambassador is not able to attend but someone might attend in his place.

Trinity College, Cambridge - Thanks him for his copy of 'Totemism and Exogamy', grieves that [Lorimer] Fison and [A. W.] Howitt have not lived to read it; had a visit from [John] Roscoe; and discusses ways he has supported Roscoe's candidature: he reminded [Lord] Crewe of Frazer's application for Roscoe, and wrote to Sir Kenneth Muir Mackenzie recommending Roscoe; notes that he knows the Chancellor [Lord Loreburn], but thinks it more effective to approach Muir Mackenzie.

Refers to Patterson's article, which appeared in the Academy two weeks previously. Hopes that his 'Rouman professor' has not heard of it. Reports that he is making a final attempt to persuade 'the faithless editor' of the National Review [Leopold Maxse] to put in Patterson's former article. Having been told that there was no interest in the subject of Home Rule in Austria-Hungary, Sidgwick learned that Earl Crewe, recently Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, has written an article on Irish Home Rule in which he refers to Austria-Hungary as a parallel. Refers to what Patterson told him about his political situation. Reports that in England 'the prospects of ecclesiastical bodies seem to be looking up - in the general [rout] of the so-called Liberal Party.' Does not think it will go very far, however. Reports that 'there is a general calm' in the political atmosphere of England, 'such as normally succeeds a decisive Conservative reaction'. Reports that [the Sidgwicks] are at present on their holidays 'enjoying weather quite unusually delightful.' Expresses regret at hearing of Patterson's trouble about his brother [Patterson's half-brother Samuel Evan Williams?].

Hôtel Floresta, Taormina [headed notepaper]:- Will return to England at the end of the month: would like to join some friends - Marsh, Barran, and Childers - and possibly Charlie, who are going for a few days’ walking tour in Yorkshire. May stop a day or two at Rome, but does not mean to stay anywhere long. Was ‘very glad to learn that C[harlie] had been coopted’ - understands that he has not been elected ‘by a constituency. It shows that they must think a lot of him’. Met an ‘acquaintance’ of Charlie’s the other day, a Miss [Lena] Milman, who writes and translates Dostoevsky; she met Charlie at Lord Crewe’s, and ‘chiefly remembers him as an enthusiast for Jane Austen’. Supposes Georgie will be back [from Madeira] around the same time he returns, having been ‘further afield in this “grand terraqueous spectacle” [Wordsworth] than any of the family than Papa’, since he does not remember their mother having ‘ever ventured beyond Naples or Vienna’.

The Italians ‘have had a terrible disaster [the great defeat by the Ethiopians at Adwa] and there is some talk of the throne having received a dangerous jar’: it is too soon to tell, but certainly many Italians ‘especially in the North are republicans at heart’; Crispi [the Prime Minister] has resigned. Hopes ‘Uncle Sam will stick to his guns about Cuba. That will be so much better than having a senseless shindy with us’. Is ‘anxious’ to hear how the news sounds to her in England: ‘out here they are mere shadows of events, for it is only when history can be talked about and over hauled in conversation that it becomes real’.

The weather has not always been brilliant, though they ‘have not been siroccoed for a week on end again’; is finding it ‘very easy to catch a chill’, as nights can be cold and ‘there are no such things as fires’; still, it is easy to get rid of chills, and he is ‘keeping quite well’. Has discovered something ‘about Papist priests. They dispense with fasting when at an hotel, because table d’hôte does not provide them with a sufficiency of good fish and vegetables’. Also, they are ‘passing fond of Madeira’. Is ‘quite priest-ridden’, though the two in his hotel are ‘the only two of any intelligence and conversation’, and he is ‘deadly sick of watching “The fat and greasy citizens sweep in / To sate their sordid souls at table-d’hôte”’. This is a quotation from ‘a sonnet built out of quotations’ which he and Bertram ‘architected for the Westminster two years ago on the Wengen (?) Alp’.

Welcombe, Stratford on Avon. - Encloses a cutting from the American "Nation", with a letter about [Rabindranath] Tagore, and a poem by Lord Crewe which is 'about as good as his father would have written'. The poem reminds Sir George of the 'very pretty memoir' by Lord Ribblesdale about his son [Charles] Lister [who died of wounds sustained at Gallipolli] which has recently been published. Thinks the long article on Emerson in this week's "[Times] Literary Supplement" is by the same writer as the one on Keats; strange to see how the author in both cases 'admires and loves' quite different things to those he does himself. Most interested in Robert having known 'Jones Festing' [sic: Henry Festing Jones], and will want to talk to him. Now Robert knows 'all about it', can say that Mr [Arthur] Fifield told him the same about what seems to be now the only surviving sister of Samuel Butler.

Accompanied by a letter from Lord Shaftesbury to Sir Henry Cholmondeley Jackson dated 9 Nov. 1944 and a copy of a War and English Poetry by the The Most Hon. the Marquess of Crewe, September, 1917. Also accompanied by a cutting of an article headed "Sheffield's New Chancellor. Marquis of Crewe on Universities and Industry" from Sheffield Daily Telegraph of 16 Feb. 1918.

Invitation to Sir James and Lady Frazer to a party on Friday, 29 June.

Two bound volumes, the first undated, but likely from c 1900-1910, is mostly made up of lists of books to look up, with many carrying shelf marks, and a few with a quoted passage, accompanied by a number of lists, including five pages of notes on a revision to the second edition of 'The Golden Bough', as well as a list of washing done at Trinity College in December 1903.

The second volume contains a number of shorter lists, undated but evidently later, c 1910-1920, of books to read, books sold, additions to the Golden Bough index and bibliography, books relating to Flood legends, and Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, with notes on flats, some of them detailed measurements, and a plan of his study at St Keynes; accompanied by a list of people, possibly an invitation list to an event, and a short list under the heading 'Roscoe Memorial' which includes the names Winston Churchill and Lord Crewe.