File No. 763.72112/2999
The Commercial Adviser of the British Embassy (Crawford) to the Acting Foreign Trade Adviser of the Department of State (Letcher)
[Received September 20.]
My Dear Mr. Letcher: I have received your letter of the 7th instant,1 calling my attention to a report which has reached the State Department from the Governor General of the Philippine Islands to the effect that the British Consul General at Manila has stated [Page 448] that certificates of interest signed by a British consular officer will be required for all exports from the Philippine Islands to the United Kingdom.
You are undoubtedly aware that under the British trading with the enemy acts, it is a penal offence for British subjects under British jurisdiction to purchase or handle the merchandise of, or in any other way to trade directly or indirectly with, persons or firms whose names appear on the British statutory list. This being so it has become necessary for His Majesty’s Government to devise some means by which British subjects and British ships may continue freely to purchase the products of neutral countries and import them into the United Kingdom with some assurance that while engaging in particular transactions with persons in neutral countries, they are not trading indirectly or through misrepresentation with proclaimed firms and thus exposing themselves to the penalties provided by British law.
The readiest and best means for affording this facility to trading is that all shipments to British destinations from neutral countries in which there is a considerable number of firms of enemy nationality, or with enemy interests, should be accompanied by a consular certificate stating that no firm with whom British subjects are forbidden to trade has a substantial interest in the goods transported by British ships for consumption in British dominions.
In the case of shipments from continental United States it has been found possible to dispense with this safeguard and to leave it entirely optional with the shipper or the importer to ask for a certificate, if there should be any doubt in his mind as to the real nature of the transaction. On the other hand, in the case of the Philippine Islands, where the number of proclaimed enemy firms, or firms with enemy associations is proportionately large, and where such firms, having adopted American and British names, could thereby cloak their attempts to trade with the British Empire, it is essential that British subjects should be afforded such security as is provided by the issue of consular certificates of interest.
Yours very truly,