648T.116/8
The Chargé in the United Kingdom (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
No. 4392
London, January 17,
1940.
[Received February 5.]
Sir: Referring to the Department’s
instruction No. 1134 of December 26, 193960 (File No. 648T.006/12)
directing this Mission to bring to the attention of the appropriate
British authorities certain considerations respecting American
commercial rights in Kenya and other East African areas and the
effect thereon of recent British import licensing and exchange
control measures, I have the honor
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to report that the subject was yesterday
discussed with Mr. Nigel B. Ronald, Chief of the General Department
of the British Foreign Office. There was also left with him a copy
of the enclosed aide-mémoire. At the same
time he was informed of the inquiry made by the Japanese Embassy in
Washington and of the Department’s reply to that Mission.61
Mr. Ronald said that he was unable at the moment to indicate the
precise position but that the general problem of the control of
imports in the British colonies and mandates was being given active
consideration at this time. The Japanese Government, he said, had
approached the British Government on the subject, as he recalled,
about the end of November. The Italian Government had also touched
on the matter.
Speaking informally, Mr. Ronald said that the problem was one of the
availability of exchange. The relative position of exports and
imports and the resultant excess of exchange or the lack of it
necessarily had an influence. With Great Britain engaged in a life
and death struggle, it was necessarily obliged to use its exchange
resources as effectively as it could. To his inquiry as to the
American attitude the reply was made that in the past the United
States Government had on a number of occasions strongly urged the
view that measures rendering access to markets contingent on the
relative position of bilateral trade balances were
discriminatory.
Mr. Ronald indicated that as soon as the study now being made of the
general question brought up in the Embassy’s aide-mémoire had progressed to a conclusion, the Foreign
Office would be glad to give the Embassy a considered answer.
Respectfully yours,
[Enclosure]
The American
Embassy to the British Foreign
Office
Aide-Mémoire
The attention of the United States Department of State in
Washington has been called to the entry into effect on November
15, 1939 of a system of licensing and control of imports in the
Colony of Kenya, British East Africa, under which licenses and
foreign exchange permits are required, with certain exceptions,
for all American products entering the colony. Essentially the
same type of import and exchange control is understood to have
been introduced in all the territories of British East Africa.
It is reported, moreover, that applications to import American
products are being disapproved in the
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majority of cases, while those
applications which are approved encounter considerable
delay.
The Governments of Great Britain and the United States, it will
be recalled, are among the signatories to the Congo Basin
Convention signed at St. Germain-en-Laye on September 10,
1919,63
Article 2 of which provides that merchandise belonging to
nationals of the Signatory Powers shall have free access to the
interior of a specific region in Africa and that no differential
treatment shall be imposed on such merchandise on importation or
exportation. The import permit requirements and exchange control
which have been established in the specified region, apparently
without the consent of the Signatory Powers to the St.
Germain-en-Laye Convention, not only seem to overlook the right
of free access but to involve discriminatory treatment of
American goods. These regulations are therefore, in the opinion
of the Department, clearly inconsistent with the provisions of
Article 2 mentioned above.
It is also the opinion of the Department of State that, in so far
as the mandated territory of Tanganyika is concerned, the new
regulations are inconsistent with the provisions of Article 7 of
the Mandate, to the benefits of which the United States and its
nationals are entitled under the terms of the American-British
Convention signed at London on February 10, 1925.64 The
Department is now studying the effect of recent measures taken
by the British authorities in other British territories,
including those under British mandate, in Africa and in western
Asia, and may wish to address a communication on that subject to
the British Government at a later date.
Meanwhile the United States Government confidently expects that
the British Government will recognize the right of American
merchandise to enter British East Africa freely and without
discriminatory treatment under the Congo Basin Convention, and,
in view of the serious adverse effect which the regulations may
be expected to have on American trade, that appropriate steps
will be promptly taken to this end.
London,
January 16,
1940.
