File No. 861.48/159
The Ambassador in Great Britain (Page) to the Secretary of State
[Received 9.50 p. m.]
4619. My 4597, July 22.1 Following is text of note just received from Foreign Office:
July 26, [1916].
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your excellency’s communication of July 8 [7] in which you are good enough to lay before His Majesty’s Government an appeal to all belligerent governments to come to an agreement for the relief of Poland.
His Majesty’s Government desire to settle once and for all the whole question of importations of foodstuffs into territory in the occupation of the enemy. They therefore make the following final proposal: If the German and Austro-Hungarian Governments will reserve wholly to the civil populations of the territories which their armies have occupied, viz.: Belgium, northern France, Poland, Serbia, Montenegro, and Albania, the entire produce of the soil, all livestock, and all stocks of food, fodder, or fertilizers in those territories, if they will admit to those territories neutrals selected by the President of the United States with full powers to control the distribution of food to the whole population and to transfer when necessary and possible from one territory to another surplus stocks existing in the one and lacking in the other, and if the President of the United States will undertake the selection of these neutral agents, His [Page 905] Majesty’s Government will, on their part, give them every assistance in their power and will admit into such territories imported food supplies necessary to supplement native stocks and to afford to the populations a fair subsistence ration so long as they are satisfied that their enemies are scrupulously observing their part of the agreement.
If this offer is refused, or if the German and Austro-Hungarian Governments do not reply before the harvest in the occupied territory begins to be gathered, but continue to refrain from stating officially for the information of the Allied Governments their exact attitude in regard to these questions of relief, His Majesty’s Government will hold them responsible and will exact from them such reparation as can be secured by the Allied arms or enforced by the public opinion of the neutral world for every civilian life lost through insufficient nourishment in every territory occupied by the armies of the Central powers.
It is obvious that if this proposal is to be put into operation successfully, no time must be lost. The new harvest will shortly be gathered and for the plan to be of any advantage to the populations of the occupied territories, the fruits of the harvest must be placed in neutral control before they have been appropriated for the use of the subjects of Germany and Austria-Hungary.
I am informed that above will be published in English press tomorrow. Text telegraphed to Gerard and copies forwarded to Penfield, Whitlock, Hoover, and Warwick Greene of Rockefeller Foundation.
- Not printed.↩