File No. 300.115/7702

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

[Telegram]

4042. Your 3007, March 6, 8 p. m. Am in receipt of following note from Sir Edward Grey in reply to my representations:

I have the honour to refer to your excellency’s note of the 7th instant relative to the further application made on behalf of the Mitchell-Bissell Company for an undertaking by His Majesty’s Government not to interfere during transit with certain cases of porcelain guides of German origin used in textile machinery in the United States.

His Majesty’s Government have carefully reconsidered their former refusal to give any undertaking as requested, but I regret to say that they are unable to reverse their original decision.

As your excellency is already aware, a considerable concession was made last October in acceding to a similar request on the part of this same company, and His Majesty’s Government feel that the stocks then acquired should have been sufficient to tide over any reasonable period necessary before adequate supplies could have been obtained elsewhere than from Germany.

As regards the assurances alluded to by your excellency as having been given by His Majesty’s Ambassador at Washington to the Secretary of Commerce, I presume that reference is made to paragraph 16 of the note which I had the honour to address to your excellency on June 17 last.1

As I explained to your excellency in my note of the 22d instant on the subject of the cyanide for the Roessler-Hasslacher Company,2 I can not trace any other assurance of this nature to the United States Government.

American Embassy