856D.6176/464

The American Embassy in the United Kingdom to the British Foreign Office50

The United States Government concurs in the desire of His Majesty’s Government not to elaborate further statistical arguments as indicated in paragraph 7 of the Foreign Office note of August 20. [Page 919] The United States Government does desire, however, to point out that the apparent miscalculation referred to in numbered paragraph 6 of the Foreign Office note of August 20 arose from an inadvertent error in the Embassy’s note No. 2693 of July 17, 1937. The words “available supply of rubber” in the second paragraph of the Embassy’s note should have read “the months’ supply of rubber.” The thought in mind in this connection was that with the rising trend of world consumption of rubber the maximum possible addition to world stocks by the end of 1937 would still leave them no larger in terms of the number of months for which the stocks would be adequate, than were the stocks at the end of 1936.

  1. Copy transmitted to the Department by the Ambassador in the United Kingdom in his unnumbered despatch of October 6; received October 15.