File No. 656.119/128
The Minister in the Netherlands ( Garrett ) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 11, 4.53 a.m.]
1816. In connection with your 892, January 7, 7 p.m., of which as you request I have made no use, I beg you to submit what follows to the President.
I have just had long talks with my British and French colleagues. Townley has full reports from London of the proceedings of the embargo conferences there as well as expressions of the opinions and wishes of his Government as to what is going on in them. Allizé is wise and is very well informed. They both believe that we shall come to an agreement with Holland. The basic principles essential to Holland and to us, namely, the rationing of Holland and the use of Dutch shipping, are supposed to be agreed upon. The amount of the rations and the precise use to which the tonnage shall be put are supposed to be still subject to discussion. Of course there are other things besides, some of which have been exaggerated into importance and none of which I suppose is essential to us in the prosecution of the war or to Holland to stave off famine.
This country’s policy at this time may be put into one phrase: To do nothing that will involve her in the war; to stand tight and grim and very neutral until peace comes. She dreads and fears Germany with an obsession that has produced perhaps in the minds of Dutchmen a new stubbornness which we have got to take into consideration in dealing with them. There may be something petty in their view but they are a little people and we have got to take that into consideration too. It is said that in secret session of the States General the Government has told the committee that Holland’s resistance to a German invasion would be a matter of five days. They see at their [Page 1386] doors what has happened and what is still going on in Belgium. But they have another dread and that is unemployment and famine. This dread may be exaggerated. It is nevertheless terribly real. It must continue to be a preoccupation of the authorities. I do not think in comparison they care very much how Dutch tonnage is used, though they would like assurance that they would get it back after the war.
By seizing Dutch ships in our ports we get the use of that much tonnage. But we definitely throw over the use of Dutch tonnage not in our hands, force a give-and-take trade with the enemy upon this people, and throw them altogether into German bonds. And we destroy once for all the ideals which Dutchmen associate with America.
Furthermore we fearfully complicate the Belgian Relief work. There are grim threats already, on the docks at Rotterdam, that the supplies shall be held there rather than that the Dutch shall starve. I have hesitated to cable about these threats because I have feared that they might be misunderstood … I state them now simply as fact.
Most of the Dutch people are with us now. There is almost no unbought expression of public opinion here that is pro-German. We have to do nothing more than stand up to our ideals to keep them with us. But I am bound to say that there is a changing attitude. We have to read and listen already to denunciations of our professions and aims that do not originate with the German propaganda.
Unless our immediate military needs imperatively demand it, I respectfully ask that the decision to seize or requisition Dutch ships in our ports be not taken unless and until our reasonable offers have been definitely and once for all rejected, not by the Dutch delegates in London, but formally, here by the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the name of his Government. Nor should a suggestion that such action is officially contemplated be allowed to leak out as it could have only the worst consequences. The British use of the “big stick” in the sand and gravel controversy accomplished nothing desirable but only added to the difficulties of hurting Germany by accord with Holland. I think it is possible that the Dutch Minister for Foreign Affairs is not kept well informed of what goes on in the conferences at London and is not always accurately acquainted with our point of view. He told me yesterday that he has had no telegrams from his delegates for days. There has been no mail from England for nearly three weeks.
I suggest to you that, if it is the fact, the Secretary of State instruct me to say to the Dutch Minister for Foreign Affairs that my Government understands that we are in accord with his as to the principles of the rationing of Holland and the use of Dutch tonnage. I believe that a statement by the Dutch Minister for Foreign Affairs to this effect would then measurably clear that atmosphere, impede the insidious influences that are working against any accord between Holland and the Entente and ourselves and probably make easier reaching an understanding as to many details the relative importance of which may possibly have been overestimated through lack of a large enough view. Public sentiment would not permit haggling over details.