561.311F1 Advisory Committee/1059
The Secretary of State to the Netherland Minister ( Loudon )
The Secretary of State presents his compliments to the Honorable the Minister of the Netherlands and has the honor to refer to the Legation’s note of October 23, 1941,8 requesting the Government of the United States to transmit complete information concerning the Wheat Meeting which is now in progress in Washington and to admit to the Meeting an observer appointed by the Netherlands Government.
At the invitation of the Government of the United States, officials of the Governments of Argentina, Australia, and Canada which, together with the United States, are the leading wheat-exporting countries, and of the United Kingdom, the principal wheat-importing country, met in Washington on July 10, 1941, to discuss with officials of the Government of the United States the present situation and outlook with respect to international trade in wheat and to consider what steps might be recommended to their governments with regard to the wheat surplus problem. After preparing a provisional draft wheat agreement as a means of visualizing in concrete terms the problems presented, they recessed on August 3 in order that they might have an opportunity to consult their respective governments and reconvened on October 14, 1941 to continue the discussions.
The present discussions are being carried on with a view to determining whether a basis might be found for an international wheat agreement in so far as the interests of the principal wheat-trading countries are concerned and the nature of the obligations they might be required to assume. It has been recognized that, if the discussions should indicate that an agreement would be possible in so far as these countries are concerned, the interests and desires of other countries not participating in the present discussions would have to be considered and that appropriate procedure for consultation would have to be worked out.
It may be pointed out that the request of the Government of the Netherlands, which has been brought to the attention of the Wheat Meeting, involves a question of procedure and that the same question must be considered with reference also to the interests of other governments not participating in the present meeting. The discussions have not yet reached the stage at which the Meeting would be in a position to take action in regard to this question.
The several governments taking part in the discussions fully recognize and appreciate the interest of the Government of the Netherlands in the subject under discussion and it is hoped that the Government of the Netherlands will, in view of the considerations set forth above, [Page 544] regard sympathetically the desire that action on its request be deferred until the question of a possible basis for an agreement among the governments especially concerned has been more fully explored and it is believed that a broader international approach to the question of a wheat agreement may be warranted.
- Not printed.↩