File No. 165.102/993
The Ambassador in Great Britain (Page) to the Secretary of State
[Received 7 p. m.]
4467. I am to-day in receipt of note from Foreign Office in the following sense. Due consideration has been given to my communication of June 7 based on your 3399, 6th, regarding shipment to the United States of dyestuffs of German origin. As explained in its note of June 2, cabled to the Department in my 4420, 5th, British Government felt it impossible to leave its offer of April 1915 open indefinitely, and the concessions made to the United States Government in the matter not having been taken advantage of for more than a year, British Government regrets its inability to consider a fresh concession under conditions which have now entirely changed. The note addressed to me on January 28, contents of which were cabled to the Department in my 3668, 29th,2 was not, and was not intended to be, a fresh undertaking to let the dyestuffs pass. It only related to the form of payment and with consignment of the materials should the transaction contemplated in the previous April mature. Even so, nothing was said as to the sum to be paid nor as to exact amount of dyestuffs, both of which would have had to form the subject of subsequent discussion and arrangement.
Sir Edward Grey trusts that the explanation made in his note of June 2, along with the communication which British Ambassador [Page 561] at Washington was instructed to make to the United States Government, will meanwhile have convinced the State Department of the justice and reasonableness of British Government’s attitude in the matter. The entire matter has been earnestly and thoroughly presented. I fear that the foregoing represents the final decision of the British Government.
- Not printed.↩