811.114 Belgium/218½
Memorandum by the Consul General at Antwerp (Wiley), Temporarily in the United States
Last evening after dinner the question of alcohol smuggling from Antwerp was raised in private conversation with the Belgian Ambassador. [Page 409] He told me of his recent conversation with the Secretary and stated that he had received an “eight page” instruction from his Government reiterating its position, namely, that it was the duty of the American Government to protect its own coast from smuggling and not the obligation of the Belgian authorities. He conveyed the impression that the attitude of the American Government was unreasonable and that the position of the Belgian Government had in no sense been modified by the Secretary’s representations to him.
I told him that the coasts of the United States were so extensive that it was impossible effectively to prevent the introduction of smuggled alcohol without collaboration abroad. Antwerp is the principal base for the smuggling of alcohol into the United States. It would be an extremely simple matter to prevent this traffic by the imposition of a regime of landing certificate bonds and that indeed the whole business was so malodorous that it seemed highly opportune for the Belgian Government to take immediate, energetic steps. M. Ponthoz protested that as far as Antwerp was concerned the traffic in question was entirely legitimate. I replied that it was legitimate merely because of lacuna in Belgian laws. The alcohol was released from Belgian bonded warehouses without payment of tax for shipment to destinations which were known to be entirely fictitious. Indeed, there was no guarantee that alcohol thus released from bonded warehouses was not being reintroduced into Belgium. In fact, a recent incident, involving alcohol shipped by Meeus and Company, was believed by the customs authorities in Antwerp to indicate that the alcohol was destined for smuggling into Belgium.
The Belgian Ambassador inquired with regard to the position taken by M. van Zeeland4 in the matter. I informed him that as far as I knew the only concession Mr. van Zeeland had been willing to make was to agree to adhere to any general agreement that might be concluded with Holland, Germany, France, et cetera, for the prevention of smuggling. In other words, Mr. van Zeeland had put the whole case on a hypothetical basis and had thereby eliminated any possibility of effective action, despite the fact that Antwerp was the source of practically all the contraband alcohol originating in Europe. I suggested that to Belgian economy this traffic represented a “bagatelle”; probably the biggest shipments of alcohol did not exceed $10,000 in value in Belgium, though the same shipments represented very considerable loss to the American Treasury, in addition to the other factors involved.
- Paul van Zeeland, Belgian Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Commerce.↩