793.94 Conference/29
Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State (Wilson) of a Conversation With the British Chargé (Mallet)
Mr. Mallet called, at my invitation, and I handed him the memorandum87 in reply to that of the British Embassy of October 1st. Mr. Mallet read the memorandum.
I said that I had noted in the press this morning indications of a reaction in Great Britain against the idea of a boycott. According to the press, the Conservative papers were playing it down and the [Arch-] Bishop of Canterbury himself had qualms on the subject. Mr. Mallet said that he had no telegram or message from his Government that indicated that the British Government were any less interested in the question than it was when he made his inquiry, that obviously a boycott was a thing for private initiative, but that it might be encouraged or discouraged by the government. I said that, in the first instance, the matter certainly was one for private initiative.
I then read Mr. Harrison’s88 text of Cranborne’s89 resolution introduced in the subcommittee in Geneva.90 Mr. Mallet and I agreed that it seemed probable, in view of this, that things have taken a slightly different direction from the way in which they were pointed when the British Government made its inquiry and that we might expect an invitation shortly as a signatory of the Nine Power Treaty91 and that this might furnish a reasonable opportunity for consultation.
Mr. Mallet said in parting that he was glad to see that our reply “left the door wide open.”
- Infra.↩
- Leland Harrison, Minister in Switzerland.↩
- Viscount Cranborne, British Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.↩
- See telegram No. 26, October 5, 11 a.m., from the Minister in Switzerland, vol. iv, p. 54.↩
- Signed at Washington, February 6, 1922, Foreign Relations, 1922, vol. i, p. 276.↩