860D.85/161
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State (Long)
The Finnish Minister called upon me at his own request. He stated that he had handed Mr. Welles a note on the subject of Finnish ships and he handed me a copy thereof which is attached.63 He stated that the Finnish ships had an engagement with the United States Maritime Commission through the Finnish Shipping Mission64 in New York to operate these ships on the Inter-American routes and that the British Government had given its permission for these vessels to return to United States ports. When Britain declared war on Finland, five of these ships were taken over by the British. The Minister claimed that we were responsible to Finland for the vessels because we had not forced the British to live up to their agreement to permit those vessels to return to American ports but had themselves appropriated them.
I told the Minister that his statement was correct except that it omitted to take note of the fact that the agreement with the United States and the undertaking of Great Britain was during a period when Great Britain and Finland were on a friendly basis. There was no war existing between the two. They had broken relations and [Page 48] that was the occasion for the undertaking on the part of Great Britain to permit the ships to return to United States ports. However, the agreement did not contemplate that upon the outbreak of war between Great Britain and Finland that those ships would continue in the same relationship and receive the same treatment by Great Britain. The outbreak between England and Finland had changed the situation and had caused England to change its attitude toward ships of a power which had suddenly become an enemy power. I told the Minister that his claim, if any, would be against England and not against the United States and that the proper way for him to present his claim or to make any observations his Government might care to make on the subject of these vessels was through the intermediation of the Swedish Government as their protecting power with the British Government; that their protest or their claim should be made to Great Britain and not to the United States.
The Minister said that he was making this “for the record”; and that he did not expect any immediate action on the part of the United States.