411.60 d Finnish Vessels/120
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Castle)
The Finnish Minister came in to see me to talk about the Finnish ship claims which he had already discussed with Mr. Bundy.
After he had talked for a long time saying nothing new, I reminded him that he had said all this to Mr. Bundy and to me at other times and that I certainly sympathized with Mr. Bundy’s idea that it was very unfair to try to bring up these claims after such a long lapse of time; I reminded him that probably some people who had been connected with the retention of the vessels were dead, that others could hardly have any clear recollection; I said it seemed to me that there ought to be a statute of limitation on claims and that they ought not to be legal after five years; the Minister reminded [Page 194] me that this was not the ease and I said I knew it was not, but that I was merely suggesting an idea; I said, however, that if the shipping companies felt they had a good claim they would have put in the claim in 1919; the Minister said they were helpless because there was at that time no Finnish Minister in Washington; I said any enterprising company could easily have hired a lawyer in New York; he made a lot of excuses for the delay and took on himself the delay between 1923 and 1925, when he had been studying the question; I said that Mr. Bundy was perfectly willing to hear anything he might have to say in the matter when he got his evidence, but that as it stood now I should personally be very much opposed to permitting suit to be brought in the courts since the lapse of time immensely weakened our defense.