611.41D31/16
The Chargé in the Irish Free State ( Denby ) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 15.]
Sir: I have the honor to inform the Department that in the negotiation of reciprocal trade agreements no country could be more willing to meet the United States half way than the Irish Free State, under its present Government headed by Mr. Eamon de Valera, President of the Executive Council.
The Free State, with the raising of cattle as its main sustaining industry, heretofore has been dependent on one external market. The Free State’s large surplus of cattle, (together with other agricultural products) has been going to Great Britain and the Free State has been importing British manufactured goods in return. It is Mr. de Valera’s aim, as far as possible, to free his country from this state of dependence and specialization.
By encouraging the establishment of industries in the Free State a better balance between agriculture and industry is to be brought about. Convinced of the social advantages of decentralization which would avoid great concentrations of wealth and poverty in large industrial centers, Mr. de Valera desires to see established a large number of relatively small industrial units scattered throughout the country.
In addition to a better balance between agriculture and industry, a better balance, within the field of agriculture, is to be brought about between grazing and tillage. Heretofore, cereals have been imported into the Free State in important quantities but the de Valera Government is taking various means to encourage their local production as well as to reduce the number of acres of land given over to the raising of cattle.
These plans fundamentally to change the country’s economy, along the lines of increasing separatism and isolation from Great Britain and hence of increasing national self-sufficiency, do not preclude the negotiation of reciprocal trade agreements with various foreign powers whose present small trade with the Free State it might be mutually [Page 996] advantageous to increase and, as suggested above, there is no country with which the Free State would rather conclude an agreement aimed to foster mutual trade than the United States.
Mr. de Valera himself informed me that he hoped the foundation of a trade agreement between the Free State and the United States would be laid in the near future and, to come to the point of this despatch, he said that when the agreement was ready for signature he would be glad, as a gesture of good will, to go to Washington to sign it.
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For a brief statement of recent industrial progress in the Free State, I beg to refer to my despatch No. 77, of July 30, 1934.1
A Report No. 30, mailed on March 19, 1934,1a from the American Consulate General in Dublin, deals with direct trade between the Free State and the United States.
Respectfully yours,