856d.6363/10: Telegram
The Minister in the Netherlands (Phillips) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:12 p.m.]
212. Your telegram number 493, July 16th [17th], 6 p.m. Reply just received from Foreign Office to my note of July 22nd,8 a copy of which was transmitted to the Department in my despatch 198, July 22nd, regarding oil situation in the Netherlands East Indies. Foreign Office refers to fact that mining law requires a majority of members of the administrative council and of the directors of an incorporated joint stock company to be of Dutch nationality or that they reside and have their domicile in the Dutch Indies. Nevertheless the Foreign Office says: “These regulations do not in any sense exclude the participation of foreign capital in the said enterprises.” Furthermore, the note states: “The laws of the Dutch Indies contain no restriction relative to the shareholders of incorporated joint stock companies while the new American law does not permit subjects of other states to possess shares in an incorporated joint stock company established in the United States if the laws of the countries whose nationality they bear contain any restriction of whatever character in the above mentioned sense.” The Foreign Office invites my attention to the foregoing in connection with my observation that: “In the view of the United States Government the Netherlands do not accord the same degree of freedom to American citizens as has been accorded in the United States to Dutch subjects.” This reply seems somewhat argumentative in tone and as failing to grasp the fact that the discrimination is one-sided and does not originate on the American side.
I should be glad of your views before answering the communication.
- Note of July 22 not printed.↩