894.24/648
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of European Affairs (Moffat)97
I asked Mr. Mallet, Counselor of the British Embassy, to call this afternoon and explained that we have received information from Paris98 to the effect that since the seizure of the Spratley Islands France has cut off all deliveries of iron from French Indo-China to Japan. The French, however, are upset about this as it is seriously affecting the finances of Indo-China, and the Japanese are meanwhile obtaining the necessary iron from the Malay Peninsula. The French, [Page 530] therefore, suggested to the British Government that this source of supply be cut off. The British apparently replied that they didn’t see any use in cutting off iron exports from British or French possessions so long as Japan could obtain all the supplies of iron she might need from the United States. The French understood that the British were about to ask the U. S. A. if something could not be done to cut off supplies of iron from the United States to Japan.
The purpose in asking Mr. Mallet to call was to suggest to him that it might be inadvisable for the British to make such an approach. In the first place, we would have to reply that the matter would receive study from the point of view of our own independent interests; that we had always pursued an independent course, which though it often happened to parallel the course of other Powers, could not be in the nature of joint action. More important, however, was the fact that if, as seemed probable, legislation looking toward an embargo of certain types of steel and iron scrap were introduced by Senator Pittman99 it would be helpful to this Department to be able to say that it had not been approached on the matter by Great Britain or any other foreign power.
Mr. Mallet replied that he had heard nothing whatsoever about the matter, and was inclined to doubt whether the British were planning to make us this request. However, in view of the intimation I had just given him, he would see that it were stopped, as the last thing the British Government wished to do at the moment was to embarrass us in any way.