611.4131/214
Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State (Sayre)
Sir Ronald Lindsay called to see me this morning to say that he had received despatches from London saying that the British Foreign Office is giving careful consideration to the matter of our trade agreement and that they hoped to send us a definite reply at an early date. When I asked Sir Ronald what this might mean and how soon we might expect a reply, he said he thought certainly by Christmas.
I entered into a rather intimate conversation with Sir Ronald about the whole situation. I suggested that we hoped to secure the renewal of the Trade Agreements Act in the early winter and that in my personal opinion the Administration would be in a stronger position to negotiate with the United Kingdom this winter than probably for some time to come, because we would be backed by the overwhelming vote for President Roosevelt and would have not only this prestige but a fresh mandate from Congress if the Act is renewed without amendments, as I hope it will be. In other words, I suggested that we would be in a stronger position to negotiate and could do more in a [Page 704] trade agreement with the United Kingdom if negotiations were pushed this winter than at any other time.
I asked Sir Ronald whether his despatches were encouraging or otherwise. He said that they were not encouraging. He said that the list of our requested concessions hit the Ottawa Agreements in the solar plexus and he added that although the Ottawa Agreements might conceivably be modified, he believed that the system of imperial preferences was a permanent one which England would not give up. He also spoke of the pressures in London due to the constant fear of war.
I again said to the Ambassador what I have said on former occasions—that a man like Secretary Hull did not become Secretary of State often and that, as he has the full backing of President Roosevelt, the opportunity offered to Great Britain for a close understanding and commercial rapprochement between our two Anglo-Saxon countries was a rare one which it would seem tragic not to embrace,—for such a chance would not come again probably in our generation. The Ambassador expressed himself as in personal agreement with all that I had said.