File No. 600.119/544a

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

[Telegram]

6617. For Sheldon [from War Trade Board]:1

No. 113. Understanding now reached with British Embassy, subject to formal approval of Foreign Office, for complete elimination navicerts on following basis:

1.
United States will recognize control machinery now existing in neutral countries, reserving right from time to time to propose changes in personnel, form of organization, and method of control.
2.
Trade representatives of the United States and Great Britain in northern neutral countries will constitute themselves, informal local joint committees to supplement and supervise the workings of domestic control organizations.
3.
The first step in any import transaction will be: the buyer securing a permit from his local control organization, if any, and if not, filing an application to import with the local joint committee. The local import permit, if granted, or applications to import, will be given number and reported with comment by local joint committee to London committee hereafter referred to.
4.
Seller will then apply for export permit, giving import permit number. The exporting country will first pass for itself on question of conservation and consignor. If these tests successfully passed, application will then be referred to an inter-Allied committee at London.
5.
The inter-Allied committee will pass on the following points:
(a)
Can importation be permitted in view of rationing agreements?
(b)
Are consignee and ultimate purchaser satisfactory?
(c)
The committee will also apply principles as to conservation of tonnage if and when such principles are agreed to by the governments concerned. The committee will not, however, itself formulate and apply rules on this subject.
6.
For the present, the inter-Allied committee to be utilized will be the existing Contraband Committee; whether a new inter-Allied blockade committee should be created will be subsequently considered.
7.
The War Trade Board London representative will cable recommendation of committee. It is expectation of War Trade Board that it will uniformly follow London committee recommendation. It reserves, however, the right to overrule London decision, but in no case would this reserved right be exercised without previous exchange of views with British. It is understood that Great Britain will adopt similar practice and United States representative on committee be given opportunity to scrutinize British applications to export, and that no licenses will be issued over his objection without previous exchange of views with United States.
8.
No attempt will be made to apportion rations among several cobelligerents. Buyer will be entirely free to select his own market.
9.
Where the neutral buyer desires to purchase in another neutral country, his import permit or import application may be submitted through local committee to London committee, with name of consignor, and London committee in such cases may pass on transaction in its entirety and its decision will be final.
10.
The method of handling cables, abbreviations, etc., will be as set out in Department’s No. 6210, January 10, 4 p.m.,1 with following additions and changes:
(a)
We propose to add to our regular serial number a second number prefixed by a letter designating country of destination; this second group of numbers to be run serially according to country of destination. Applications for shipments to Norway will be given our regular serial number, to which we will add A1, A2, A3, etc.; Swedish applications will be numbered as regularly, plus B1, B2, etc.; Denmark, letter C; Holland, letter D; Iceland and Faroe Islands, letter E; Greece, letter G. Shipments to any of the above countries under $100, except for Greece, will be lettered Z; and shipments of this character for Greece, letter U.
(b)
Sixth item in cable will be “consignee”; seventh, “import certificate number”; eighth “consignee’s address”; ninth “purchaser, if different from consignee”; tenth “purchaser’s address, if a purchaser different from consignee.”
11.
We propose to license freely, but with discretion, shipments of under $100 in value, to all destinations, without reference to London. Weekly reports of Z and U licenses will be sent by mail to War Trade Board, London and Athens, respectively.
12.
It is proposed to inaugurate the foregoing methods immediately in case of Iceland, and also in respect of Holland and Sweden as soon as export of nonessentials begins.

You will please repeat the foregoing to United States Legations at The Hague, Christiania, Stockholm, and Copenhagen.

It is suggested we permit shipments to northern neutrals only on vessels carrying the flag of the country of destination. Please cable [Page 965] your views on this. British Embassy suggests licenses for northern neutrals should be valid only for 60 days, in accordance with British practice. We seriously object to this as railroads will require licenses before beginning shipment to seaboard and, owing to our unusual railroad conditions and difficulties, to issue 60-day licenses would require ultimately the reissuing or renewal of probably 75 per cent of licenses issued. Our licenses are normally issued now for 90 days except in cases of some few special commodities, and even in view of rationing difficulties, which we can appreciate, we think our licenses for northern neutrals should be in general for 90 days. We propose to send you weekly in pouch two copies of manifests of all vessels for northern neutrals.

Lansing
  1. See next to last paragraph for instruction to repeat to legations at The Hague, Christiania, Stockholm, and Copenhagen.
  2. Ante, p. 939.