9/7/15
My dear Father
I hope you have got my telegram of today, and understand its purport.
I have wanted to get £100 War Loan, but just at the moment cannot be certain of finding the subscription as due, in view of possible unlooked for expenses next month and September. But learning that you had considered the possibility of subscribing yourself, and had decided not to, in view of wanting the money next year, I thought by co-operation we could manage easily for I can guarantee to take the whole thing over by January at latest, and probably before.
I bought £100 of old loan early in the year, and if I can acquire this second £100, should be able to convert the old before the end of October.
If you have been able to apply on time you will already have paid out £5. I can undertake to send you £15 when I hear whether you’ve started the purchase that would cover the July subscription and the deposit. If you could find cash for the August subs, I think I can manage the rest, and relieve you of your share in December, or sooner if I let my flat.
If you are inclined to the arrangement perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad scheme for you to find £50 worth of the money and hold on till December, and then we’ll split the first dividend, and afterwards I could buy you out your share – anyway it’s only a matter of arithmetic. For conversion purposes it will be necessary before October 30th for the stock to be transferred to my name, but I thought in the meantime it had better stand in yours for purposes of signatures etc and the transfer can easily be arranged later.
I hope you will have been able to arrange the application in time, as the list closes tomorrow, but until I had your letter I didn’t see any way of subscribing, and had decided to buy the stock “cum-rights” before October 30th if possible, so as to convert the old holding. But the thing then becomes merely a transaction for my benefit, whereas to subscribe now swells the fund and if it’s a bit of a tight fit to get all the money it will make me all the more economical.
I hope my promised explanation is quite clear. I’m glad some of the others have found a bit for the loan also. I see Austria could only raise just over 100 million.
I’ve had no reply from the War Office, and probably shall not, as my note doesn’t necessitate an answer! However I’ll report there on arrival, and see what’s doing.
The change to No 12 didn’t come off after all but I’m getting all the work here from the typhoid hospital. Officially I’m not the pathologist, actually I am, so I get all the work, and the other man, an absolutely hopeless inefficient, gets the extra pay attached. It’s an awful scheme really, but as I’m here such a short time it isn’t worth fussing about it; I do the work willingly enough for one isn’t out here to make money, but I hate to see someone else collaring the cash which I earn and he doesn’t.
Shortly however he is to be pushed out, and a noted London pathologist is taking charge, Lazarus-Barlow, the head of the cancer research place at the Middlesex; to work under him will be a privilege, whether there is extra pay attached or not.
I haven’t been out much lately except for some rides; I’m pretty much at home on a horse now, though I haven’t attempted jumping yet.
I hope public opinion will keep the recalcitrants in parliament in their place; on the whole the new government seems to be working well. I wonder what is the inner secret of Lloyd George’s remarks about Haldane: pretty severe anyway.
Well, I have another letter to write before turning in. Hoping you’ll be able to arrange this loan business on the lines I suggest, and with love to all.
Your affectionate son
Arthur
