341.1154L58/213: Telegram
The Ambassador in Great Britain ( Bingham ) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 3—3:45 p.m.]
233. The Foreign Office delivered British Government’s reply to the Embassy’s note, referred to in the first paragraph of my 231, [Page 807] August 1, 5 p.m.,8 today and under instructions from the Acting Secretary of State it was orally indicated that while the British Government considered the American note excessively stiff in its tone no modification had been reached of the views previously expressed to the American and Belgian Ambassadors, reported in Embassy’s despatch 578, January 15, 1930.8 It was added that there were many statements in the American note under acknowledgment to which the Foreign Office took exception, particularly the consideration numbered 9 quoted textually in the Department’s instruction 454 of March 27, 1933, which insinuated that the courts were not independent of the British Government. It was further added that it was the official opinion that the British note of today’s date in reply to the American note was “a mild rejoinder to an insinuation to which strong and legitimate exceptions might easily have been taken.”
This British note of reply, dated August 2d, consists of some four full pages and does not attempt to meet all of the arguments advanced in the American note. In the main the note sets forth that “the British Government cannot admit any locus standi of the United States Government in the matter”. There is also enclosed with the British note a copy of a memorandum (for the information of the United States Government) which had been handed to the Belgian Ambassador and to which indirect reference was made in the last paragraph of Embassy’s telegram 78 of April 7, noon.
Full text of British note with enclosures will go forward today by pouch.