File No. 811.142/1501
The Ambassador in Great Britain (Page) to the Secretary of State
[Received 11 p. m.]
4045. Your unnumbered despatch, February 18,1 telegrams 2986, March 2, and 3058, March 17.2 Following reply dated March 27 received from Foreign Office:
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your excellency’s notes of February 29, March 3, and March 18, regarding the despatch of medical supplies to Germany by the American Red Cross and by the American Physicians’ Expeditions Committee.
Your excellency will be aware from my note of the 22d instant that His Majesty’s Government have felt obliged to withdraw the lists of articles which they previously put forward as coming within the meaning of the provisions of the Declaration of London regarding articles serving exclusively to aid the sick and wounded. His Majesty’s Government have recognized one general exception to the restrictions imposed on the importation of medical stores into enemy countries, namely, that any supplies sent by the American Red Cross to an American medical or hospital unit in an enemy country will be allowed to pass freely into that country so far as His Majesty’s Government are concerned.
In the list submitted in your excellency’s note of February 29 I recognize only one item which would appear to come under this general exception, namely, the one case listed as No. 2528 containing various supplies for an American Red Cross hospital at Munich.
The question raised in your excellency’s note of the 3d instant is whether supplies despatched by the American Physicians’ Expeditions Committee should be entitled to the same exception as is accorded to the American Red Cross. This question is important, as the list in your excellency’s note of February 29 contains a long list of supplies to be forwarded by Dr. H. M. Richter for this organization to the care of the American Embassy at Berlin. I have made such enquiries as have been possible regarding this committee, and I think it best to state frankly that I am informed that there is nothing in this committee, in the persons controlling it, its personnel, or its work, to distinguish it from an ordinary German Army medical organization. I do not desire to be understood as expressing any final opinion on the character of this organization, and I need hardly say that if the application contained in your excellency’s note of the 3d of March were supported by a definite recommendation from the Government of the United States to the effect that this organization is a genuinely American one, identical in purpose and the neutral character of its staff with the American Red Cross, His Majesty’s Government would be glad to extend to it the same facilities as those promised to the American Red Cross. Meanwhile, however, I feel that no exception to the general restrictive policy of His Majesty’s Government can be made in the case of this committee.
It follows from the above that one case only included in the list submitted by your excellency on February 29 can be given free passage into Germany by [Page 945] His Majesty’s Government. I recognize that any such decision may cause disappointment to genuine American philanthropic enterprise, since the stores named in that list may be the result of a systematic collection of gifts from different quarters in the United States. Your excellency will, however, appreciate that from the standpoint taken up by His Majesty’s Government in my note of the 22d instant it is almost impossible to discriminate and to give permission for particular consignments of medical stores without invidious distinctions except under the principle already mentioned which discriminates in favour of supplies sent to American Red Cross units in enemy countries.
I may perhaps add that as regards the rubber gloves and other rubber goods appearing on this list—a class of article which has aroused some attention in the United States in this connection—His Majesty’s Government have noted with interest the statement published in the German Rubber Journal of September 17, 1915, that an adequate supply of rubber for the medical needs of the German Army had been assured by recent measures.
Copy of Foreign Office note of March 22, above referred to, was transmitted to Department by my despatch 3317, March 23.