611.4131/1661
Memorandum by the Secretary of State of a Conversation With the British Ambassador (Lindsay)
The British Ambassador called and insisted that his Government could not agree to the lumber tariff concession of five percent asked by this Government in connection with the trade agreement negotiations. His plea was that it would let in similar Baltic lumber and that no classification could consistently or conscientiously be made by his Government that would exclude it from the benefits of the proposed concession. I said that all tariff laws contain just such detailed classifications in one respect or another, and that I had not before heard any complaint about any strain on governmental conscience. I then added that, since Great Britain and her housebuilders would be the beneficiaries of the proposed tariff reduction, I could see no theory on which that Government might object unless she did so in behalf of Canada, and that I had not yet heard of the conscience of Canada having come under any strain. The Ambassador really offered no arguments. I went on to say that homebuilders, especially in this country, and, I imagined, in Great Britain as well, would be immensely interested in the news that we had reduced the cost of this world material for house construction, but that, if we should allow a little group of timber barons in British Columbia, Oregon and Washington, working from the same or different viewpoints, to knock this lumber proposal out of the agreement, it would be a severe reflection on both of our Governments, as I saw it. I said that both of our countries had always had free lumber until recently, and that both are suffering injuries because of the present tariff burdens; that I felt obliged very earnestly to request and urge that, in these circumstances, our two Governments again confer among their experts and leave nothing undone in their efforts to clear up this lumber matter satisfactorily; that only five percent of it is economic, while the other ninety-five percent is more or less political or psychological, and that this was all the more reason for our two Governments not to allow themselves to be driven away from the entire proposal by the special interests of a few lumber barons. The Ambassador said that he would see what could be done in this regard.