859B.01/155
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Adviser on Political Relations (Dunn)
The Canadian Minister came in this morning by appointment and left with me the attached aide-mémoire20 on the subject of the position of Greenland.
The Minister explained that this message was not a reply to the statement made to him Saturday, April 13, by the Secretary, which stated the attitude of this Government with regard to the rights of a third government to acquire Greenland. Mr. Christie explained that the message contained in the attached aide-mémoire had already left Ottawa before the Secretary made his statement of last Saturday to the Minister.
Mr. Christie further explained that while the Canadian Government would like a reply to the message contained in the attached aide-mémoire as soon as this Government could conveniently communicate it to them, it would be a matter of two or three weeks before it would be possible to take any action along the lines of sending a ship or ships to Greenland, and there was therefore time in which to make this reply at our convenience. The Minister further stated, however, that his Government felt it would be well, even though the action finally decided upon could not be taken immediately, that the decision as to the plans to be followed should be arrived at as soon as possible.
The Minister said he particularly wished to point out the temporary character of the establishment of the proposed guard service in the Canadian message. He also read out some data with regard to the population and trade and commerce of Greenland, all of which seemed [Page 357] to me to be in line with the information already at the disposal of the Department.
I asked the Minister whether we could assume that no action would be taken by Canada with regard to Greenland either along the lines of the suggestion contained in the message he presented or in any other way until this Government had had an opportunity to inform the Canadian Government of its attitude with regard to any such proposed action. The Minister replied that he was perfectly certain that the Canadian Government would not take any action whatever before they had our reply, or in any event if that were not forthcoming within a reasonable time, he was sure they would notify us at the time they might intend to take any action.
I told the Minister that I would report his message immediately to the Secretary and that he would, in due course, be informed of this Government’s response to the Canadian Government’s message.
Upon my reporting to the Secretary the above conversation with the Canadian Minister, the Secretary said that he wished to have those in the Department concerned with this question duly informed and that he would, within a very few days, call for a discussion of the matter in order to formulate the reply to the Canadian Government.
- Infra.↩