711.00111 Articles or Materials/2

The British Embassy to the Department of State

Aide-Mémoire

The attention of His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom has been drawn to certain provisions of Section 2 of the Joint Resolution approved by the President on November 4th—the Neutrality Act of 1939.

Subsection (a) of Section 2 provides that “Whenever the President shall have issued a proclamation under the authority of section 1 (a) it shall thereafter be unlawful for any American vessel to carry any passengers or any articles or materials to any state named in such proclamation.”

Subsection (c) provides inter alia that “Whenever the President shall have issued a proclamation under the authority of section 1 (a) it shall thereafter be unlawful to export or transport, or attempt to export or transport, or cause to be exported or transported, from the United States to any state named in such proclamation, any articles or materials (except copyrighted articles or materials) until all right, title and interest therein shall have been transferred to some foreign government, agency, institution, association, partnership, corporation, or national.”

[Page 682]

Subsection (g) lays down that “the provisions of subsection (a) and (c) of this section shall not apply to transportation by American vessels (other than aircraft) of mail, passengers, or any articles or materials (except articles or materials listed in a proclamation referred to in or issued under the authority of section 12 (i) (1) to any port in the Western Hemisphere south of thirty-five degrees north latitude, (2) to any port in the Western Hemisphere north of thirty-five degrees north latitude and west of sixty-six degrees west longitude, (3) to any port on the Pacific or Indian Oceans, including the China Sea, the Tasman Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and the Arabian Sea, and any other dependent waters of either of such oceans, seas or bays, or (4) to any port on the Atlantic Ocean or its dependent waters south of thirty degrees north latitude. The exceptions contained in this subsection shall not apply to any such port which is included within a combat area as defined in section 3 which applies to such vessels.”

Subsection (L) states “The provisions of subsection (c) of this section shall not apply to the transportation by a neutral vessel to any port referred to in subsection (g) of this section of any articles or materials (except articles or materials listed in a proclamation referred to in or issued under the authority of section 12 (i)) so long as such port is not included within a combat area as defined in section 3 which applies to American vessels.”

The effect of these provisions is to allow American and neutral vessels to carry goods (other than war material) to ports of belligerent countries lying within the areas specified in subsection (g) without the title in the goods having previously been transferred to some foreign agency. Similar facilities are however not extended to goods carried on vessels of belligerent states proceeding to the same areas and in such cases the title to the goods has to be transferred before they can be exported from this country.

Subsections (a), (c) and (g) quoted above reproduce to all intents and purposes similar provisions contained in the text of the Joint Resolution as originally passed by the Senate on October 27th.44 That text did not however include any clause similar to subsection (L) of the final Act and its effect was therefore to extend to American vessels only the exemption from the necessity of complying with the transfer of title provision in the case of goods exported to belligerent ports lying within the areas specified in subsection (g).

The fact that the Joint Resolution as originally passed by the Senate thus discriminated in favour of American vessels was brought to the notice of the State Department on November 1st by a member of His Majesty’s Embassy who pointed out that such discrimination [Page 683] would seriously prejudice important British shipping interests.45 The member of His Majesty’s Embassy was informed that the State Department were already alive to the situation, and that as far as they were concerned they did not wish to see such discrimination embodied in the final version of the Act. He was given to understand that the State Department would be prepared to recommend that the position be rectified by the amendment in Conference of subsection (g) so as to omit the word “American” in line 2 of the printed text and thus make the exemption apply to vessels of all nationalities. It is understood that such a recommendation was in fact made to the appropriate quarter by the State Department. The recommendation was not however adopted; subsection (g) remained applicable to American vessels only and a fresh subsection (L) extending the exemption from the transfer of title provisions to neutral ships was inserted.

The result is therefore that as stated above the Act as finally passed and approved extends to American and neutral vessels certain facilities which it denies to those of belligerent countries. The immediate effect on British shipping is very serious since it is considered that on the average about two-thirds of the cargo usually carried on British ships to belligerent ports in the prescribed areas is consigned to agents or branches of shippers and therefore not sold before shipment. In order to comply with the terms of the Act several British ships which have already loaded or are in process of loading in United States ports may have to be detained for an appreciable period until the formalities in connexion with transferring the title of their cargo have been completed, while in other cases it may even be necessary for some of the cargo to be unloaded. Neither American nor neutral vessels proceeding to the same destinations will however be subjected to similar handicaps.

Furthermore the effect on British shipping in the future if this measure of discrimination were to continue would be even more serious while the position is aggravated by the fact that a large proportion of the cargoes affected are in fact destined for British ports.

His Majesty’s Embassy has therefore been instructed to call the attention of the State Department to the matter, to emphasise the great importance which His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom attach to the question and to urge that the United States authorities explore every possibility of rectifying this inequitable position at the earliest possible moment.

  1. H. J. Res. 306; Congressional Record, vol. 85, p. 1024.
  2. Memorandum of conversation between the First Secretary of the British Embassy and the Chief of the Division of European Affairs, not printed.