800.6354/203: Telegram
The Chargé in the United Kingdom (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 24–8:30 a.m.]
451. Department’s 336, February 21, was transmitted to The Hague and discussed with the British Colonial Office which seems genuinely [Page 291] apprehensive that the Dutch will press for a quota figure below the rate of consumption estimated at the equivalent of 70 percent. The Colonial Office favors a quota rate above consumption level both because it wishes to avoid a repetition even in a minor way of the experience which consumers suffered last fall and because British tin interests, unlike the Dutch, are not so unified and therefore cannot from an operations point of view adjust easily to drastic changes. That is not to say that there is any support here for a 100 percent quota. Given the amount that world stocks will aggregate in May, support can only be obtained for a moderate addition to those stocks by the second quarter export quota.51
As reported in paragraph 2 of the Embassy’s 243, January 25 [26], 6 p.m.,52 it is intended when the buffer pool begins to operate to hold a substantial amount of the stock in the United States. The detailed arrangements to effect this are yet to be worked out since at the present time the pool is in pounds (sterling) and any tin held by it in New York would be equivalent to holding dollars.