856D.6176/493: Telegram
The Minister in the Netherlands (Gordon) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 23—10:49 a.m.]
30. Department’s 24, March 12, 1 p.m. In view of the time limit of March 31, when presenting the note in question to the Netherlands Government I requested at least a preliminary expression of its views for the beginning of this week. The Foreign Minister—who said he knew nothing of the matter and had referred it to his experts—asked [Page 932] me to call on him today and gave me a somewhat indeterminate oral reply as representing such preliminary views.
It was to the effect that the Dutch have no objection to our suggestion that the second American member of the Advisory Panel be a representative of the ultimate consumers rather than necessarily a representative of the manufacturers. Our suggestion number 3 is not objectionable to the Dutch in principle. According to the Foreign Office the same is true of our suggestions 4a and 4b; he says that his experts tell him that our desiderata can be brought about within the wording of the recommendation for regulation renewal as it stands, but he was not too explicit as to whether the Dutch would strongly endorse our views in this respect vis-à-vis other members of the Regulation Committee.
The Minister said that others of our suggestions cover points which have been the subject of discussion with our Government over a considerable period of time and that at present the Dutch authorities did not see their way to accede to our suggestions. I can understand that this is true of our suggestion number 5 but 6 would seem necessarily to be a new question and I have not encountered anything in the Legation’s files indicating that our suggestion number 7 has formed the subject of discussion between our two Governments.
The Minister indicated that at its meeting of March 29 certain revisions of the recommendation for the renewal of the regulation agreement would be considered by the Rubber Regulation Committee but he could not tell me just what these revisions would consist of, whether they would be put forward by the Dutch members of the Committee only or whether they already had been agreed upon by the whole—or substantially the whole—membership of the Committee. The Minister was very vague on this point and I only report it for what it is worth; if I can succeed in securing further information in the premises I shall cable it. Copy to London.