811.04418/553
The Australian Prime Minister (Menzies) to President Roosevelt 18
We are greatly perturbed by the immediate result of your Neutrality Proclamation19 since it cuts off from us not only the military aircraft already on order and approaching delivery but actually makes it impossible for us to purchase from the United States civil aircraft for civil training purposes.
I need not tell you that I appreciate fully your position in the presence of the Neutrality Law but in a personal way I would like you to know that it is felt here that the effect of your law is to deprive us of vital supplies while inflicting no corresponding disability upon our enemy. We do not know what risk we may have to encounter in the Pacific, and our own resources in aircraft manufacture are naturally in a somewhat early stage of development.
Your friendship towards Australia and your great courtesy to me when I had the honour to visit you at the White House20 have impelled me to make this personal communication to you which I am sure you will not take as an impertinent criticism of a policy which I recognise is one solely for the United States to determine.
- Received by President Roosevelt from the British Ambassador, and transmitted on September 11, 1939, to the Under Secretary of State for preparation of a reply.↩
- Proclamation regarding export of arms, ammunition and implements of war, September 5, 1939, 54 Stat. 2635.↩
- August 8, 1935; at that time Mr. Menzies was Attorney General of Australia.↩