600.119/1917: Telegram
The Ambassador in Great Britain (Davis) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received December 28—4:50 p.m.]
4910. War Trade Board [from Sheldon]: Number 2186. Referring to our 2163, Embassy 4838, December 23rd and our 2165, Embassy’s 4855, December 24. I personally am not in sympathy with the recommendation of the committee mentioned in our 2163 that reexports of free list goods are not permissible to the Central Powers and that guarantees against such reexport should be obtained insofar as practicable under existing agreements. You will remember that in many of the agreements concluded with the Northern Neutrals and Holland it was provided that a free list should be set up for which no guarantees of any kind should be exacted and when we discussed here in London the advisability of finding an outlet from the Associated countries of certain manufactured articles, it was suggested that a [Page 780] free list be set up which would permit of unrestricted export within the export license limits set by each Associated country and that no guarantee should be asked against reexport even though some of the commodities had previously been on the list of rationed articles. Hoover is very anxious to move large quantities of pork from the United States immediately, and in order to have this plan work successfully I think that we should let it be known through the I.A.T.C.’s in Holland and the Northern Neutrals that pork and also other articles on the free list can be imported freely into these countries and that there would be no objection to their reexport in any direction. If you approve of this, I would ask you to inform me immediately as any delay in making it clear to neutrals that they might reexport pork would have a serious influence in Hoover’s programme of marketing the United States surplus of pork products; therefore rush answer.