File No. 763.72112/1551
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Page)
2123. Department’s September 11. Department assumes you have acquainted Foreign Office with the dissatisfaction of the great body of American importers with the action of the British authorities in granting for the bringing forward of American goods through private American attorneys in London without notice to them of what was going on and with their serious complaints that all importers were not promptly and fully advised of the change in the British attitude as announced in their note of June 22, 1915,1 so as to enable them to take equal advantage with others of that change; also of the advice and information given inquiring importers by the British Embassy here in the sense that all applications should be made to the Embassy through the foreign trade advisers and that all cases will have to be presented through that office. From this the Department and the importers understood that hereafter no other channel to American importers would be open for applications for permits. The satisfaction afforded by these advices was expressed to you in Department’s September 11 and rested on the belief that in this way only could the serious jealousies and dissatisfaction now existing be removed.
Department is yet without reply to the request made in its cable to you of August 23 for full information as to the conditions under which permits have been or are being granted on applications made through attorneys, nor have you replied to Department’s September 11. Full information without further delay is absolutely necessary to relieve the Department and the foreign trade adviser from the embarrassment under which they are placed and to meet the thousands of complaints being made by importers and to relieve the minds of those importers from suspicions of discrimination and other grievous wrongs.
Department anxiously awaiting your reply.