800.6176/28
The Chargé in the Netherlands (Wilson) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 2.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to the Legation’s confidential telegram No. 36, of September 22, 1 p.m., 1936, concerning the meeting of the International Rubber Committee to be held in London on September 29th and the possible visit of Colonel Townsend of the Committee and Mr. de Krafft, of the United States Rubber Company, to The Hague in that connection.
I have almost nothing to add to the telegram, except to say that I am personally convinced that there is no change in the attitude of Premier Colijn and other Netherlands officials, that is to say, that they are still strongly opposed to the British idea of higher prices for rubber. As the Department will recall, Sir John Campbell and Mr. Eric Miller were in favor of ten pence gold a pound and are believed to be still in favor of raising the price through the restriction plan. In any case, I gather that while Mr. Bolderhey and other Dutch representatives might favor a ten per cent decrease in the restriction, they feel that the British would not follow at this time. I do not gather that the British are considered to be irrevocably opposed to a decrease when the time seems right. Presumably the right time would be when stocks are reduced to less than 350,000 tons.
The fact that the tonnage figures quoted by the Department in its telegram No. 26, of September 16, 6 p.m., 1936 are not those which are used for working purposes by the Committee or by the Netherlands or British Government, seems to me a matter which requires some adjustment. Do the figures used by the Department for world stocks include all stocks afloat and in storage in the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Penang? I do not know whether the Department prefers not to accept the official figures of the Rubber Committee, but they are available in pamphlet form once a month and should, I think, be forwarded regularly by the Embassy in London.
Basing their calculations on the figures given in the Legation’s above-mentioned telegram, the conclusion reached by the Netherlands experts,—and they are in everything that has to do with rubber Mr. Bolderhey and Professor van Gelderen of the Ministry of the Colonies,—seem to be convinced that there is no danger for the present of a shortage of world rubber stocks in the technical sense. In this connection they ask a question which at first glance seems difficult to answer, i. e., why is it that if the American rubber companies fear [Page 508] excessive rubber prices they are not for the moment stocking up and increasing their purchases? It is a fact that American stocks declined nearly 25,000 tons from January to June.
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Respectfully yours,