File No. 763.72112/12929
Memorandum by the Acting Secretary of Stake
In compliance with a telegraphic request from the President I called last night at 9.30 on the British Ambassador after sending a telegraphic instruction to London directing the American Ambassador to take up informally and confidentially with Sir Edward Grey the subject of the order in council modifying the Declaration of [Page 234] London and its menace to the friendly feeling of the American people for Great Britain.
I asked the Ambassador if he had seen the editorial in the Washington Post of that morning relative to the order in council. He said that he had and that he appreciated the effect of such criticism on public opinion. I then told him of the instruction sent to London and asked him if he would not lend his aid to secure the cancellation or modification of the order in council, which I was sure would arouse a storm of protest when its provisions were understood and would be successfully used by the enemies of Great Britain in this country.
The Ambassador replied that he certainly would assist in any way that he could, that he fully appreciated the gravity of the situation, and that he had already telegraphed his Government several times in relation to the matter but would do so again immediately in view of the instruction sent to Ambassador Page.
A discussion of the provisions of the order in council followed in which the Ambassador said that he agreed that the order in council practically made foodstuffs absolute contraband, which was contrary to the British traditional policy as well as to that of the United States. He said that the immediate cause had been the introduction through Rotterdam in first days of the war of large quantities of food supplies for the German army in Belgium, and that it seemed absolutely necessary to stop this traffic.
I replied that, while I appreciated that such reasons must weigh very heavily with those responsible for the successful conduct of the war, it seemed unfortunate that some other means could not have been found to accomplish the desired purpose, either by getting the Netherlands to place an embargo on foodstuffs and other conditional contraband or by agreeing not to reexport such articles. The Ambassador said that he agreed that would be much the better way, and that he believed it could be done.
He said that now the chief anxiety seemed to be in regard to shipments of copper and petroleum and also of Swedish iron, and that the British Government was stopping vessels with such cargoes and purchasing them. He suggested that possibly the difficulty created by the order in council could be removed by rescinding it and adding to the list of absolute contraband petroleum products, copper, barbed wire and other articles of like nature now used almost exclusively for war purposes.
I said that as to this suggestion I could not speak for the Government but that it seemed worthy of consideration as it might offer a means of getting rid of the order in council which certainly menaced the very friendly relations existing if it became the subject of discussion by the press. I told him that I did not think that the feeling which the order in council would arouse when generally understood, would be among the shippers as much as among the American public at large; and that, even if no case arose under it, the fact that the British Government had issued a decree, which menaced the commercial rights of the United States as a neutral, in violation of the generally accepted rules of international law, would undoubtedly cause irritation, if not indignation, and might change the [Page 235] sentiment of the American people, of which Great Britain had no reason to complain at the present time.
The Ambassador said that he realized that, and that he would do everything in his power to remove any cause of complaint against his Government for threatened interruption of our commerce with a neutral country, and he appreciated the consideration shown by the President in taking up the matter informally and not lodging a formal protest against the order in council. He felt that the Foreign Office must see how expedient it was to change its action, which was entirely contrary to the attitude previously held by the British Government, and had been so frankly stated by Lord Granville in 1885. He hoped that it would turn out in the way we both wanted.