710.Consultation(2)/446
The American Member of the Inter-American Neutrality Committee (Fenwick) to the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
Dear Mr. Welles: Your letter of June 22nd is here, crossing in the mails mine of the 24th, preceded by my cable of the same date,93 containing some suggestions, rather extreme ones, in regard to the Havana Meeting.
In the meantime the tentative agenda of the Havana Meeting is here and I note with interest that under the head of Neutrality (2) it is proposed to examine in the light of present circumstances the standards of neutrality set forth in the General Declaration of Neutrality adopted at Panama. In that connection you may be interested to see the text of a project that I submitted to the Committee about May 15th94 but which was opposed by a majority and got no further than the committee minutes. My purpose in submitting the project was merely to have it serve as a sort of protest against the invasion of Belgium and Holland. At that time I did not realize fully the sudden change that had come about in American public opinion.
My feeling for the past six weeks has been that the Committee can do little more than await developments in the attitude of the American [Page 323] Republics towards the war. Our functions as a “Neutrality” Committee are interpreted so strictly by some of our members that there is little that we can do for the moment that is of any practical value. Yet I feel that the Committee is of great importance as a symbol of Inter-American unity, and that the principle which it represents of cooperative work by the twenty-one states through a small advisory body ought to be kept alive by enlarging the functions of the Committee to meet new conditions. The problem is, how to do this without duplicating the functions of the Pan American Union or encroaching upon the field of “political” questions.
Thus far the Committee has confined its activities to making recommendations upon specific problems submitted to it. I proposed two months ago that it undertake research work into the larger problems of neutrality and that it prepare a “code” of neutral rights and duties. That was before the invasion of Holland and Belgium, which undermined the foundations of neutrality and made us all feel that the future of neutrality was too uncertain to make research study profitable. Would it now be feasible to suggest to the Havana Meeting that the Committee be permitted to undertake a long-range study of the “Causes of war and the conditions of peace”,—an analysis and exposition of the problem of peace from the point of view of the American States, showing the particular interest of each of them in the problem and what bases for agreement exist among them. The Committee for the Study of the Organization of Peace in the United States has been working along similar lines for the past eight months, only without special reference to Latin America. The suggestion is no doubt premature, since the Havana Meeting will doubtless want the Committee to continue as a Neutrality Committee for the duration of the war. But there is no harm in keeping in mind the possibility of enlarging the functions of the Committee when the proper time comes.
The latest recommendation of our Committee was the one on Radio Communications, submitted on June 22.95 No questions of principle were involved in the recommendation, and the regulations suggested were more or less obvious. But there was nothing more that we could do under the circumstances. We have still the question of automatic contact mines to dispose of, and in my next letter I will explain why the topic has been so long on our hands.
Two of our members, Podestá Costa of Argentina, and Herrera of Venezuela, will be at the Havana Meeting. Their presence will be sufficient to keep the Committee in touch with the points of view expressed [Page 324] at the Meeting and to explain our work to the Meeting, without the necessity of having Dr. Mello Franco attend at [as] “observer”.
[Here follows information on Mr. Fenwick’s personal activities.]
Sincerely yours,
- None printed.↩
- Entitled “Consulta as to the Future Competence of the Inter-American Neutrality Committee”, printed in Minutes of the Sessions Held by the Inter-American Neutrality Committee, Appendix A, Law and Treaty Series No. 15, p. 101.↩
- Printed in Special Handbook prepared by the Pan American Union, Appendix E, pp. 51 ff. Document erroneously dated January 22.↩