500.C1199/343: Telegram
The Consul at Geneva (Bucknell) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 30—1:35 p.m.]
146. Grady informs me as follows:
Secretariat officials have expressed to him their concern over Department’s observations on the general principles formulated by Economic Committee respecting commercial access to raw materials. While they understand that the United States might wish to have on record a reiteration of its emphasis on increasingly effective consumer participation in international regulation schemes they express surprise that the United States considers that it would be unfortunate if the general statement “international regulation schemes should be so framed as to admit effective association of consumer interests in their administration and to make available adequate information regarding their operation” et cetera, should be adopted and particularly at the charges that this statement countenances insufficiently safeguarded restrictions on the movement of raw materials by international agreement or control and would leave the way open to the sort of restriction condemned under the first principle formulated by the Committee.
Grady has been asked whether the reply indicates that the United States desires to press for a League study of international regulation [Page 922] schemes or to take steps leading toward an international conference on this subject. Leith-Ross indicated at the last meeting of the Economic Committee the British view that the diversity of conditions made it impossible to lay down specific rules on consumer representation applicable to all regulation schemes and that they should be dealt with individually. He felt and Grady concurs that the report went as far as a general statement of this kind could go. (Consulate’s despatch No. 107, political, December 13, 19376 and enclosure).
Grady desires to know what attitude he should adopt in the event he is pressed in the Committee for specified elaboration of the United States observations referred to above. He is particularly disturbed over the relationship of this question to the conversations which are expected to come up in the Committee looking to the possibility of an expert inquiry into the world cotton situation. The replies so far received generally indicate that the time is not yet ripe for further action on the Economic Committee’s statement of principles. An expansion in the Committee at this time of the United States observations along the lines of the Department’s telegram 164, December 3, 5 p.m., would appear needlessly to commit the United States idea to a degree of consumer participation in an eventual cotton control scheme, should that develop, which might be embarrassing in negotiations.
The United States reply will not be circulated until Monday.
- Not printed.↩