Office of the Historian

711.42157 SA 29/1820

The Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mackenzie King) to the American Minister in Canada (Moffat)39

No. 39
Ottawa, March 5, 1941.

Sir: I have the honour to refer to certain questions which have arisen in the course of the St. Lawrence Waterway negotiations, and which we have discussed recently.

2.
As you are aware, my colleagues and I have been giving prolonged consideration to the problems presented by the St. Lawrence Waterway project. We have noted the progress made in the preparation of the engineering plans for the international section and in the drafting of the general agreement. There is, however, one consideration [Page 154] of a fundamental character to which we desire to call attention.
3.
The growing intensity of the war operations and the apprehensions that still more serious perils will have to be faced in the very near future, necessitate the most careful examination of any proposed expenditure from the point of view of public need and in the light of war requirements.
4.
In existing circumstances, the Canadian Government desires to know whether the Government of the United States is of the opinion, in view of the position in Canada, and, of course, the position in the United States as well, that the project, as outlined in the State Department’s proposals of 193640 and 1938,41 and under consideration since that time, should now be proceeded with.
5.
We have, of course, been fully aware of the desire of the Government of the United States to have a treaty or agreement respecting the St. Lawrence Waterway concluded at as early a date as possible, and negotiations, which have been carried on more or less continuously for some time past, have had in view the desire on our part to arrive, at the earliest possible date, at terms of agreement which would be mutually advantageous. We are also aware of the pronouncements, which have been made from time to time by the President, respecting the added emphasis given by the war to the importance alike of power and navigation developments in the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence Waterway project. We are also duly appreciative of the agreement recently reached between our respective Governments, whereby the Province of Ontario has obtained the right to the immediate use of additional power at Niagara, and the diversion of the waters of the Ogoki and Long Lac Rivers into Lake Superior, in consideration of which, authority was given for the immediate investigation by United States engineers of the project in the international section of the St. Lawrence River in Ontario, in order to enable work of future development to proceed with the least possible delay, once an agreement between the two Governments, respecting the St. Lawrence development was concluded.
6.
We would naturally be prepared to give every consideration to power or navigation developments which the United States may deem necessary to the prosecution of measures calculated to aid Great Britain, Canada and other parts of the British Commonwealth of Nations in the present war, or to further the security of the United States itself against possible future events, which, at the moment, cannot be foreseen, but of which in times like the present full account must be taken. We realize that the Government of the United States [Page 155] will be as solicitous as our own Government to appraise the project at the present time in terms of its contribution to the efforts which are being put forward by our respective countries to preserve and to restore freedom.
7.
It is from this point of view and in this spirit that we would ask that the St. Lawrence project be again reviewed by the Government of the United States before an agreement or treaty be finally entered into.

Accept [etc.]

W. L. Mackenzie King
  1. Copy transmitted to the Department by the Minister in Canada in his despatch No. 1211, March 19; received March 21.↩
  2. See Foreign Relations, 1936, vol. i, pp. 834 ff.↩
  3. See ibid., 1938, vol. ii, pp. 177 ff.↩