File No. 656.119/357
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain ( Page )
7347. For Sheldon [from War Trade Board]:
No. 372. Your No. 434, Embassy No. 9537, April 16, 10 p.m. There is no intention or desire on our part to transfer Dutch negotiations from London to Washington. We feel, however, that an offer of rations should not wait until the Dutch take the initiative in resuming negotiations for a general agreement, but that it would be preferable for the Associated Governments to agree on a form of proposal to be submitted to the Netherlands. This proposal could be conditioned upon the Netherlands giving satisfactory assurances covering both Belgian Relief and the four points you mention.
[Page 1467]The offer relative to the steamers Java and Juno was made after consultation with and approval from British Embassy. The matter was not referred to London because of cables received from Garrett urging immediate action of this character as the only method of alleviating a situation which he described as critical. In so far as the grain for these steamers is concerned, the offer does no more than give effect to the proposal heretofore made by the Associated Governments. Garrett has been instructed to emphasize to the Netherlands Government that we have permitted ships from this side to lift this grain only as an exceptional measure, and that we still insist that the normal procedure must be the sending of ships from Holland to lift supplies for that country.
In regard to assurances against requisition of Dutch ships on high seas or in neutral ports on March 20, we are prepared informally to advise the Netherlands Government that we have not now any intention of requisitioning any of their ships. As we have heretofore pointed out to you, however, we are opposed to giving any permanent guarantee against requisition in any circumstance. We consider that there is very small likelihood that we should ever wish to requisition another Netherlands ship, but we can conceive of the possibility, even though remote, of a military situation arising where it would be most unfortunate to have our hands tied.
We feel that an informal explanation of our position could be made which would be satisfactory to the Netherlands Government.