562.8F3/28
The Chargé in Norway (Patterson) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 10.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to the Department’s telegram No. 6 of April 21, 1938, 6 p.m.,3 received yesterday through London, relative to its desire to be informed more fully of the possibility that the Norwegian Government might extend invitations to a meeting in Oslo preliminary to the whaling conference due to assemble at London next June.
As the Department was informed by my telegram No. 14 of April 25, 3 p.m.,3 invitations were sent out on that day, through the Norwegian Legations at Washington, London and Berlin, to the Governments of the United States, Great Britain and Germany, to participate in a meeting to open in Oslo on May nineteenth.
My informant, Mr. Valentin Aass, who had been a Norwegian delegate to the London Whaling Conference of June 1937, and on whom I called at the Foreign Office today, stated that he had learned of the intention of the British Government to call a second whaling conference only about six weeks ago when he had had occasion to revisit London. He added that the Norwegian Government would have preferred to have had the conference held in Oslo. However, since that had not been possible, owing to the British initiative in the matter, his own Government had decided that it would be well to have preliminary talks in Norway among delegates of those States which had ratified the London Convention of June 8, 1937. These were Norway, the United States, Germany and Great Britain. Ireland (Eire) was in process of ratifying the Convention and would be invited if ratification had been completed by mid-May. Mr. Aass was not specific in reply to inquiry concerning the agenda of the proposed meeting here, but said that, in general, technical questions would be taken up. He added that the phraseology of the London Convention had shown itself to be ambiguous in spots, so that clarification of portions of its text would be discussed.
[Page 949]Mr. Aass remarked that vigorous efforts had been made at Tokyo by several Governments interested in whaling to persuade the Japanese to adhere to the London Convention. It was hoped that the Japanese Government might be represented at London this coming June. However, as yet, the Japanese had shown themselves recalcitrant, having suggested impossible conditions, such as their willingness to conform to the Convention’s other sections provided they were permitted to engage in whaling one month prior to the opening of the regular season and to continue it for one month following its close. He professed annoyance that the Unilever firm had purchased large quantities of Japanese whale oil, and so had been instrumental in strengthening the Japanese in their unreasonable position. He understood that Unilever had paid more for Japanese oil than British oil had been sold for. He had expressed his view vigorously to a Mr. Morris, of the British Fisheries Office. This same Mr. Morris, he thought, had been in regular touch with Mr. Herschel Johnson of the American Embassy at London.
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Respectfully yours,