File No. 654.119/476
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Switzerland ( Stovall)
3015. For Dresel [from War Trade Board]. No. 115.
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Your 160, Legation 4695, September 12, 5 p.m.1 You are authorized to write informally to the Swiss Government stating in substance that the War Trade Board will license commodities for export to Switzerland up to and including October 31, 1918, as though the memorandum of December 5 with subsequent modifications were in effect until that date with pro rata additions to the contingent set [Page 1648] forth in this memorandum. Such obligations, if any, as may be contained in the agreement to supply shipping, will not, however, be regarded as continuing beyond September 30, the date of the expiration of the memorandum of December 5. It will, nevertheless, be the intention of the War Trade Board, whenever it can do so consistently with the national interests of the United States, to facilitate the shipment of licensed commodities to Switzerland by independent neutral ships which the Swiss Government may be in a position to charter. You will add that the Swiss Legation at Washington some months ago advised the War Trade Board that if shipments of grain could be made to Switzerland at the average rate of 30,000 tons per month from that date, the Swiss Government would be entirely satisfied and would not expect the War Trade Board to make up after September 30, when the new crop would be in, any deficit which might exist in the 240,000 tons of bread cereal mentioned in the memorandum of December 5, 1917. Shipments of grain since that time have been made at the average rate of 30,000 tons per month, the authorities of the United States having allocated for this purpose a substantial amount of American shipping, and it is believed that by September 30, the Swiss Government will have received since December 5, 1917, upwards of 200,000 tons of bread cereal or equivalent in flour. It is, nevertheless, the desire of the authorities of the United States, as a further evidence of its good will toward the Swiss Government and people, to make up any such deficit which may exist, and to accomplish this purpose it is the expectation of the authorities of the United States to allocate to Swiss use subsequent to September 30, 1918, tonnage equivalent to the tonnage of one ship in regular service, which will be employed in transporting to Switzerland bread cereal to make up the deficit above mentioned.
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