300.115(39)/12: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chargé in Germany (Kirk)
739. Please refer to telegrams 163, October 17, 1 p.m., 167, October 18, 5 p.m., addressed to the Department by the Consul General at Hamburg.
[Page 826]The American consignees are in urgent need of the cargoes of wood pulp on board Finnish and other foreign vessels now detained for examination by the German authorities. The Department is informed that the cargoes include consignments to such well-known newspapers as the Minneapolis Tribune, the New York Herald-Tribune, Hearst papers, the Boston Tribune [Boston Herald], as well as to various paper mills, box board manufacturers, etc.
There is no legal authority for this Government to give the assurances required by the German Prize Commissioner that these shipments of “cellulose” if released will not be reexported. The Department desires you, however, to discuss the matter with the appropriate German authorities on the basis of the following background:
We assume that the detained cargoes which the Germans call “cellulose” consist largely of what is known in this country as “chemical woodpulp.” Woodpulp is in heavy demand in the United States for use in the production of newsprint, magazine, writing and wrapping paper, paper bags, etc. and the highly purified grades of bleached sulphite pulp in the production of rayon.
Although the United States is the world’s largest producer of wood-pulp, its production is sufficient to meet only about 70 percent of its domestic requirements for all purposes. For the last 10 years it has been dependent on imports for almost half its total paper requirements. Accordingly, the United States in recent years has taken about one-third of the total woodpulp entering international trade.
During 1938 U. S. imports of woodpulp from Scandinavian sources were as follows:
| Sweden | 808,000 tons |
| Finland | 259,000 tons |
| Norway | 69,000 tons |
| Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania | 40,000 tons |
In addition to these imports large quantities of all kinds of wood-pulp are imported from Canada, amounting in 1938 to 468,000 tons.
Due to the heavy domestic requirements, United States exports of woodpulp are relatively insignificant and mainly of special types such as bleached sulphite for rayon exported to Japan. During 1938 total imports were 1,711,000 tons. Exports of chemical pulp to Japan, the largest buyer, were 61,000 tons and exports to all European countries only 37,000 tons.
While this Government has no legal authority to guarantee against the re-export of the woodpulp now detained, we think it inconceivable that the trend of our woodpulp trade will be reversed within a foreseeable period. We would, therefore, be very surprised if it should develop that woodpulp imported for our domestic needs were subsequently [Page 827] reexported. We hope that after careful consideration of the practical aspects of this problem the German authorities will be able to modify the Prize Commissioner’s requirements and permit the release of woodpulp cargoes now held in order that American importers may have the earliest possible use of these badly needed supplies.