Office of the Historian

500.C1112/83: Telegram

The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Bingham) to the Secretary of State

London, December 10, 1936—1 p.m.
[Received December 10—9:25 a.m.]

604. Department’s 437, December 5, 3 p.m.49 Foreign Office states in view of Sir Samuel Hoare’s original suggestion at Geneva,50 the British are godfather to the idea of such a committee but they do not intend to approach any governments except through League channels. Discussions as to the formation of this committee will come up before the Council meeting in January. The British Government’s idea is that the committee will be one of technical inquiry very much as the recent Clearings Committee.51 It also remains to be decided whether the invitations will be issued to nonmember states by the Council or by the committee when it is set up. The British Government are inclined to favor the latter proposal.

The British Government likewise have the impression that the Japanese Government may accept. They have no information as to the attitude of the Italian Government.

Foreign Office particularly referred to the fact that the terms of reference specifically omit territorial questions and in view of Schacht’s52 speech of yesterday consider the German attitude as extremely doubtful.

Copy to Geneva.

Bingham
  1. Not printed; it requested the Ambassador to report any information he was able to obtain concerning the attitude of the British Government toward the proposed committee on raw materials (500.C1112/80).↩
  2. The need for an inquiry into the problem of access to raw materials was suggested on September 11, 1935, by Sir Samuel Hoare, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in a speech before the Assembly of the League of Nations; for text, see League of Nations, Official Journal, Special Supplement No. 138, pp. 45–46.↩
  3. See Foreign Relations, 1935, vol. i, pp. 529 ff.↩
  4. Hjalmar Schacht, German Minister for Economic Affairs.↩