File No. 656.119/116
The Ambassador in Great Britain ( Page) to the Secretary of State
[Received 11.22 p.m.]
8118. For Polk:
Please see my 8117, January 1, 3 p.m., and consider it carefully. It represents, in the view of Sheldon, Edwards and Pennoyer who have been immediately in Chargé of the Dutch meetings, an excellent basis on which the Dutch may formulate their proposals to the Allies having in mind the conciliatory trend which the negotiations have assumed. Short of a requisitioning of the ships now in American ports there seems no added pressure which can be brought to bear on the Dutch by which the Allies can gain better terms from them and I particularly request you to have the substance of my telegram considered by the War Trade Board, not as a compromise but as the best terms which can be obtained. In the event that they do not consider this scheme workable, before turning it down I believe it should be submitted to the President as the most workable scheme short of a requisition of Dutch tonnage.
In this connection I have been much interested in what Lord Eustace Percy2 told me of the conferences which he attended in Washington immediately before his departure. He fears from what he then said, which at the time represented the point of view of the Foreign Office, that my telegram 8117 will be considered a compromise if it is not made clear to the War Trade Board that change of view has occurred in London and that the limits of pressure originally suggested during [McCormick’s] and Taylor’s presence here can no longer be fully applied, and he wishes to guard against the possibility of the War Trade Board throwing out the [Page 1382] present scheme or wrecking its possible success, as it might do if tonnage considerations alone prompted its decision.
- Temporarily attached to the British Embassy at Washington.↩