Office of the Historian

Chargé Bliss to the Secretary of State.

American Legation,
Brussels, July 16, 1908.
No. 381.]

Sir: I have the honor to report that on the 14th instant Chevalier van der Elst, secretary general of the foreign office, read me a dispatch from the Belgian minister for foreign affairs to Baron Moncheur, Belgian minister to the United States, directing him to hand to the Secretary of State the memorandum it transmitted. The said memorandum is an answer to the memorandum presented to the Belgian Government by Mr. Wilson on April 16 last. Chevalier van der Elst handed me a copy of the Belgian memorandum for my information, at the same time advising me that a memorandum had been presented to the British Government the day before.

He added that his Government desired to publish in a second “Grey Book,” to be submitted to the Belgian legislative bodies, the American and British memoranda and the Belgian replies thereto, and expressed a desire to have the early consent of the United States to this effect.

For the information of the department, I beg to transmit herewith a copy of the British memorandum of June 23 and also of the Belgian Government’s reply (in the French text) thereto.1

I have the honor, etc.,

Robt. W. Bliss.
  1. Printed in Congressional Doc. No. 147, 61st Cong., 1st sess.↩