441.11 W 892/25: Telegram
The Chargé in Cheat Britain (Sterling) to the Secretary of State
[Received 5:22 p.m.]
62. Your 44, March 19, 1 p.m.11 Morning Post maintains strongly anti-American attitude. Precedent of American action during Civil War against English shipping is brought out. Claims for damages are characterized as frivolous and it is pointed out that other neutrals such as Sweden and Brazil have presented no demands.
The Times of March 19th contains an editorial entitled “Indefinable [Indefensible] Claims” and states “there is no doubt that public opinion in this country has been genuinely shocked by Senator Borah’s resolution” and adds that the British people do not found their attitude upon law alone but upon the broadest grounds of natural justice and common sense upon which they contend that the power which joined them and their allies in the later stage of the war has no sort of right to claim reparation for violations of alleged neutral rights in its earlier stage. Even if the Allies committeed in this stage any acts so described, for which compensation has not been made, America condoned these acts when she entered the war as their associate. The editorial closes with: “Our people cannot bring themselves to believe that it (the Borah proposal) will receive serious support from any quarter in America”.
The Daily Telegraph on Friday printed an article headed “Surprise in America. Untimely practical joke”.
Friday’s Manchester Guardian prints a letter from London stating: “No serious person with whom I have discussed the matter in London could bring himself to believe that the United States of all countries could claim damages against Great Britain for an operation of the war, which soon afterwards, she herself was performing against other countries”.
[Page 221]An editorial in the Westminster Gazette alludes to the fact that American merchants made great profits in the supply of food and munitions and now that England is repaying her war debt, these facts will flit through the mind of the average British citizen on learning of the new claims now under consideration.
Today’s Morning Post contains another extravagant article from its Washington correspondent.
- Not printed.↩