File No. 656.119/126
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain ( Page)
6236. Following for Sheldon from War Trade Board:
Our No. 2. Referring to following cables from London Embassy: No. 7923 of December 11; No. 7990 of December 17; No. 8039 of December 21; No. 8074 of December 27; No. 8117 of January 1; No. 8118 of January 1; No. 8130 of January 2; No. 8162 of January 5; No. 8195 of January 8; No. 8205 of January 9 and No. 8210 of January 9.1
There seems to be confusion on the part of yourself and Allied conference in London concerning Dutch tonnage, judging from your cables, which we would like to clear up.
Our delay in answering your cable No. 7923 of December 11 was due, first, to the fact that we wanted to wait until we could discuss this matter with Doctor Taylor upon his return, and, second, because Mr. McCormick was endeavoring to get the Government to agree to the principle of requisitioning neutral ships, provided all fair and reasonable negotiations failed, which he understood was in accordance with the recommendations made by the Allied conferences in London and Paris. We believed that the Dutch were not willing, judging by their former actions, to accept a fair and reasonable proposition for the use of their tonnage, and that, therefore, it was important before negotiating further, to have this requisitioning principle established, in the event of its being needed.
In the meantime we have considered your proposal for a general agreement, as well as your proposal for a provisional agreement, covering the Dutch tonnage in American waters. We will give you our views in a separate cable upon the general agreement.
In regard to the provisional tonnage agreement, we thought that our proposal of December 29 was a fair and reasonable one, and that if it was refused we would be justified in requisitioning the Dutch ships in our waters, and therefore asked for immediate reply. Since that time we have had a counter-proposal in your cable of January 2, which we refused to accept in our cable of January 5, principally because we did not feel that we should change our former policy and permit a large tonnage of commodities to be exported to a neutral country while important negotiations were pending. This we understood to be the policy of the British and French, who have continually protested against our permitting small quantities of commodities [Page 1388] to be shipped to any of the neutrals, and particularly protested against the Christmas gifts recently authorized by us.
There is no danger of our adopting an individualistic policy, but it seems to us that London’s views have changed and we do not understand the reason therefor.
In addition to our proposal of January 5, if you deem advisable, you may agree to the Zeelandia sailing with approved cargo in exchange for the Frisia, which would be in the nature of the Christmas ships to other neutrals.
Our reason for refusing to permit the eight ships to sail is that we cannot understand how Great Britain and France can justify to the other neutrals our allowing 66,000 tons of foodstuffs and spices to go forward in eight Dutch ships when they protested against allowing more than a three weeks’ ration to Denmark, Norway and Sweden. We feel that all Allied Governments would find it impossible to explain such favoritism towards Holland particularly in view of the fact that Holland has been the nation most backward in negotiations and unwilling to allow any of her tonnage to be used for the needs of the Allies, when Denmark and Norway have lost many ships in our service.
A quick answer to these queries will clarify the situation:
- 1.
- Does the Allied conference in London believe that it would be better to secure Dutch tonnage by negotiation rather than by requisitioning?
- 2.
- Do you not think that our proposition of January 5, with or without the Zeelandia sailing, a fair and reasonable one, and that if Holland refuses to accept same we would be justified in requisitioning their ships here?
- Telegrams 8074, 8162, 8195, and 8210 not printed.↩