File No. 656.119/336

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

[Telegram]

7332. For Sheldon [from War Trade Board]:

No. 345. Your No. 400, Embassy No. 9425, April 9, 11 p.m.2 We are in accord with the Foreign Office in regard to the construction of paragraph 6 of the British statement. While, however, we agree that the assurance against requisitioning does not apply to Dutch boats on the high seas, or in neutral ports on March 21, nevertheless we feel that the Netherlands Government should be given to understand that we have no present intention of requisitioning any of these ships. Possible eventualities are such, however, that we are not prepared to bind ourselves formally never to requisition another Netherlands ship.

Referring to our No. 299 [292], Department 7130, April 3,3 we do not think that the offer of supplies therein suggested should wait until the Netherlands Government is again prepared to negotiate with us generally as suggested in your No. 400. No negotiation is in our opinion required except possibly such as may be involved in obtaining informal assurance that if we make the offer of supplies as proposed, adequate provision will be made for Belgian Relief. We feel it very important that we be able to tender Holland promptly a substantial amount of supplies other than the 100,000 tons of bread cereal already offered.

Lansing
  1. Ante, p. 1455.
  2. Ante, p. 1449.