File No. 763.72112/2924

The Chargé in Great Britain (Laughln) to the Secretary of Stale

[Telegram]

4830. Your 3703,1 August 18, 4 p. m. To-day the following note was received from the Foreign Office:

Viscount Grey of Fallodon presents his compliments to the United States Chargé d’Affaires, and has the honour to acknowledge the verbal note which Mr. Laughlin was good enough to address to him on the 25th August, informing him that the representations made by the United States Embassy on behalf of American firms whose names occur on the statutory list are not to be considered as an admission of the correctness of the course taken by His Majesty’s Government in placing these names on the list, but that such action was taken in order to show that the particular firms under the British rules should not be included in the list in question.

The note communicated by Mr. Page on July 28, which expresses the views of the United States Government on the general principles involved in the publication of the statutory list, has received the most careful consideration of His Majesty’s Government, and a reply will be returned thereto at no distant date.

In the meantime, however, His Majesty’s Government note the interpretation which the United States Government desire should be placed upon the representations which have been made on behalf of individual firms and persons, and they are prepared, as in the past, to accept such representations without prejudice to the general question involved, and to give them their closest attention with a view to meeting as far as may be possible, on the information in their possession, the representations of the Embassy establishing that the inclusion of particular persons on the list was not justified.

Laughlin
  1. Ante, p. 435.