611.4131/190
Memorandum by Mr. John R. Minter of the Division of Western European Affairs
Mr. Chalkley had come to the Department at our request to talk about several dominion and colonial matters. Shortly after the [Page 686] conversation began, Mr. Dunn was called away by the Secretary and I continued alone to convey to Chalkley the sense of our planned conversation. After covering the subjects which we had planned to talk about Mr. Chalkley inquired of me in a roundabout way regarding the outlook for continuing conversations regarding a trade agreement with the United Kingdom. He said that he hoped we were not overlooking the time element; that his last conversations with the Department had been in June; that he was told at that time that we would continue our studies seeking a “basis”; that he wondered whether the “basis” had been found and whether if found we were intentionally waiting until after elections to reveal the same.
He went on to say that he had no instructions but that he was simply taking this occasion to express his personal feeling that it would be a physical impossibility to conclude an agreement before June 12, 1937,49 if matters were still in a very preliminary stage at the middle of November. He said that the British had made no studies whatever and that he was sure they had not the machinery for completing studies after announcement, say in January, in time to begin negotiations which could be completed before June 12.
I was convinced that Chalkley was actually obeying instructions to “casually mention the subject on some suitable occasion.” I also felt certain that the British must have done some intensive work in preparation for more conversations. However I told Chalkley that without having been present at the previous conversations or at any time informed of exact reasons for delay I could only give a personal opinion, not to mention that I also had no instructions. I said that my personal opinion was that the best “basis” would be conciliation of views and a common purpose in our commercial policies. I had not detected the imminence of the desired rapprochement. Chalkley insisted that he thought we came nearer to seeing eye to eye than we did earlier in the year. I felt sure that Chalkley was aware of the recent memoranda which the Secretary had had presented to Mr. Eden both regarding commercial policy generally and such specific matters as Anglo-Argentine and Anglo-Peruvian negotiations.
We did not however dwell long on this broad subject and the conversation ended with Chalkley repeating his reminder of the shortness of time in such a way as to lead me to believe that he would like me in the same “uninstructed” way “on some suitable occasion” to convey to him the true sense of the Department’s present feelings on the general subject.
- Date of expiration of the Trade Agreements Act.↩