20I 



by air. He is delighted at the opportunity of coming out with the 

 La Contenta, and says that he has not got very much equipment. 

 He asks that you should make the earliest possible contact with him, 

 especially to notify him of the date of departure. I am enclosing a 

 copy of my letter to him, which goes by this same air post, and you 

 can see that I have told him that the payment of the original ,£500 

 can be by arrangement between you and him, because I feel that 

 should go to you. Please make your own arrangements. In addition, 

 he should pay for his keep. I suggest that you work out some reason- 

 able sum like 105. per day to cover the cost of food, etc., even more 

 if you think it wise, as he would otherwise certainly have to pay 

 quite a considerable amount to get out. He will doubtless have to 

 make his own arrangements for the return journey. 



To avoid any possiblity of misunderstanding on that point, I 

 had quite early sent Stuttard an explicit account of my resources 

 and had said that this was the limit from my side. The financial 

 aspect had in the later correspondence begun to obtrude itself, 

 and in a letter dated 4th June 1953 Stuttard w^rote that as he feared 

 in the beginning for the financial success of this venture and could 

 not himself afford to purchase all the equipment required, he 

 considered it necessary to seek further funds on my behalf. He 

 had indeed approached the Nuffield Trust. 



From this and other matters, on the 9th June 1953 I sent the 

 following cable to Stuttard: 'If financial burden too heavy you 

 better cancel everything writing unable assist further.' To this 

 Stuttard cabled in reply that he intended sailing as planned and 

 that he had written to Nielsen. 



On the loth June 1953 the President and Vice-President of the 

 South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research 

 visited Grahamstown and called at my Department. I gave them 

 a resume of all that had occurred, showed them the correspondence, 

 and told them that in my opinion a distinct element of uncertainty 

 about the whole project had arisen. 



We had a full discussion and it was their opinion, as it was mine, 

 that it would be inadvisable to spend money on the project unless 

 all the arrangements were quite sound and satisfactory to all 

 parties concerned. 



Stuttard wrote again on the nth June 1953, enclosing a copy 

 of a letter of the same date from himself to Nielsen, in which he 



