File No. 341.115Am319/258

The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Page)

No. 4351

Sir: The Department has received the Embassy’s No. 4810,1 of September 19, 1916, with which, having reference to previous correspondence concerning the complaint of the American Transatlantic Company respecting the blacklisting by the British Government of that company’s vessels, there is enclosed a copy of the note from the Foreign Office in response to the Embassy’s representations in the matter based upon the Department’s instruction No. 4057,2 of August 16, 1916.

The Department notes the following statement contained in the note of September 18 from the Foreign Office:

If the public attention which has been drawn to the somewhat exceptional circumstances connected with the transfer of the vessels in question to the American flag has had for one of its results, as would appear from your note now under reply, that shippers in America are unwilling to entrust them with cargoes, that is clearly not a circumstance with which His Majesty’s Government have any concern.

[Page 460]

This Government is surprised that the British Government should appear to be under a misapprehension as to the cause of the inconvenience and loss of which the American Transatlantic Company complain. In the note referred to, the Foreign Office states, “Mr. Page stated in effect that the placing of the names of certain vessels belonging to the American Transatlantic Company on the black list rendered it difficult for them to obtain cargoes.” It would appear, therefore, that the notes from the Embassy to the Foreign Office have made it clear and that the British Government understood that the unwillingness of shippers to ship their cargoes on the vessels of the American Transatlantic Company was not due to circumstances attending the transfer of the vessels of that company to the American flag, but was due entirely to the action of the British Government in placing the names of certain vessels belonging to the company on the black list.

This Government, therefore, dissents from the statement contained in the note from the Foreign Office, dated September 18, that the circumstances that American shippers are unwilling to entrust the vessels of the American Transatlantic Company with cargoes is not one with which His Majesty’s Government have any concern.

You will so inform the Foreign Office and will renew the request for the removal of the vessels of the American Transatlantic Company from the black list.

I am [etc.]

Frank L. Polk
  1. Ante, p. 452.
  2. Ante, p. 430.