File No. 855.48/668
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain ( Page)
5828. For Poland, Commission for Relief [from Hoover]:
Washington, 10. I fully appreciate that your devotion and loyalty to the C. R. B. has alone prompted your efforts to increase the available funds for purchasing supplies, and I fully agree that we should continue to exert every possible influence to carry out our program [Page 467] and fulfill the obligations we have assumed. However, I am afraid that you have not fully grasped the serious world shortage of food and shipping. At the present moment the United States has absolutely no exportable wheat if this country is to be fed and provided for according to pre-war basis and while we will, even in the face of this shortage, continue to export to our allies, we are doing this on the bet that the Food Administration will be able to carry out a program of conservation which will save the amount exported. To divert the European grain purchases to the Argentine, Australia, and India means establishment of a totally impossible-shipping position. Try as we will, we do not believe that it will be possible to carry out the complete program you have figured out embracing an expenditure of $26,000,000. The food regulations now in force have stabilized all prices of foodstuffs and it is now possible to arrive with reasonable assurance at the prices of wheat, bacon, and lard, which present the bulk of our program, and in checking up your figures, I feel confident we can carry out the minimum monthly ration on an expenditure of $20,000,000. You must bear in mind that the demands on our American supplies and on the American Treasury if granted in toto would bring famine on this country and cripple us financially. All shipments to neutrals have been stopped and the Allies will be allotted only a portion of their requisitions. The C. R. B. cannot be placed in the position of taking advantage of the enviable position we have gained with all Governments by continually asking for more favorable treatment than that accorded other Allies. Now that I have been able to ascertain and enter more deeply into the whole question of the world’s food supplies, the world’s demands, and diplomatic questions involved, I know that Belgium and northern France through our efforts, and in this I of course include your own splendid endeavors, has fared infinitely better than any other country in its allotment per capita of shipping and food, and it is only because of our personal position here in defense of the C. R. B. I fear that if general publicity was given to our present relative share of the world’s food and shipping it would bring violent protests. I must make it quite clear that our Government has not refused to carry out any obligations assumed in regard to Belgium. Hoover.