856D.6176/213: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Bingham)
148. Your 158, April 10. In accordance with your suggestion present aide-mémoire along following lines to Foreign Office. It should be in form of observations on points brought up for discussion at the meeting of April 4 and treated in the Foreign Office letter of April 9 as transmitted in your 158.
(1) The Department notes with extreme interest the expression of intention to fully safeguard against undue enhancement in the price of rubber. It however still does not believe that a plan resting solely on the discretion of the Control Committee offers sufficient safeguard. The market will be in no sense free since the amount of supplies released at any given time and the promptness of the supply adjustment to the price and stock situation would still remain entirely within the discretion of the Committee. The Department would reiterate its view that the experience of the Stevenson Plan, which rested on a similar arrangement, does not dispel its uneasiness. In order that the consumers may have publicly known assurance it seems to the Department that the scheme itself should to some measure contain specific terms for the provision of adequate supplies.
Then use the points enumerated from (1) to (5) in the Department’s No. 140, then continue:
(7) The contemplated provision in the scheme for the setting up of a panel of three representatives of consumers’ interests who will, from time to time, tender advice to the Committee, likewise seems to the Department insufficient representation. Unless the consumers’ representatives [Page 650] are in a position to participate fully in all discussions in regard to the scheme and to keep themselves fully informed as to every detail of its operation it cannot be expected that they will play a very effective part. Hence the Department trusts that their status will be much more considerable than that suggested in the note of April 7 [9?].29
Confidential for the Ambassador. It does not seem to the Department as if British officials are showing any strong disposition to meet this Government’s point of view, and it is by no means certain that if the scheme that is constituted is left entirely a matter of discretion with the Control Committee and the consumers representatives are given such a subordinate part in its operation, that this Government would assume the responsibility for nominating any consumers representatives. You may orally suggest that to the British Government.
- See supra.↩