File No. 763.72112/1190
The Counselor for the Department of State to the Counselor of the British Embassy ( Barclay )
Dear Mr. Barclay : I have received your informal note of the 19th instant,1 enclosing a copy of a letter from Sir Richard Crawford to Mr. Rose dated May 19, and also your personal note of May [Page 222] 22, suggesting the withdrawal of your note of the 19th and its enclosure. Accordingly I return the letters herewith, but as Mr. Rose had already made a report to the Secretary of State on the matter raised by Sir Richard’s letter, I enclose a copy of the report for your information. The report reviews the unofficial conversations which Mr. Rose and Mr. Fleming, representing certain American shippers, have had with the British Ambassador and Sir Richard Crawford with regard to the movement of American trade between this country and Germany and Austria. From this report it will be observed that the inference to be drawn from the note of Sir Richard to Mr. Rose, a copy of which you enclosed, and the suggestion in the recent announcement of the British Foreign Office that the conversations between Mr. Rose and Mr. Fleming and the members of the British Embassy here are of an official character, are emphatically repelled. The Department entirely concurs in this view of the matter.
Attention is also called to the reasons stated in Mr. Rose’s report for discontinuing further conversations with the British Embassy in reference to American trade. The Department entertains the view that further conversations of this sort are useless unless Mr. Rose is satisfied that they would lead to some practical benefit to American shippers whose interests he informally represents.
I am [etc.]
- Not printed.↩