800.6354/133a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom ( Kennedy )
722. All branches of the tin-using trade in the United States are genuinely and deeply alarmed at the relative shortage of available tin stocks, especially in view of the British export control measures. Even if hostilities do not arise, the situation appears to be serious enough to warrant the immediate attention of the British Government and the International Tin Committee, and if hostilities should actually come a critical situation will present itself.
We are now consulting various interested groups in the United States and probably will send to you for presentation to the British Government a documented outline of the situation. You are requested, however, immediately to get in touch with the British Government and informally advise them of existing anxieties here and say that you are instructed to request them to take under consideration at once steps for easing the situation. Please report.