File No. 763.72112/2267
[Enclosure]
The Commercial Attaché in the Netherlands
(Thompson) to the
Chargé (Langhorne)
The Hague,
January 31, 1916
.
Sir: I have the honor to report that I
had an interview this morning with Mr. van
Vollenhoven, the active head of the Netherlands
Oversea Trust. This interview was prompted by the following
telegram which I received from Consul General Skinner at London:
[Page 351]
London
,
January 30, 1916
.
Various seized shipments consigned to Trust by Armour and
Morris under
usual permits are being held because Trust stated in
November that, pending arrangement with British
Government, no further imports of meat would be accepted
by Trust. Please ascertain why Trust issued permits,
having previously agreed not to accept additional
shipments, and why it failed to advise shippers to whom
permits had been issued after this understanding as to
stoppage consignments.
Mr. van Vollenhoven said in reply to this
that he returned from a conference in London on November 8, and
since that date he had complied with the request of the British
Government not to issue further licenses for packing-house
products and that this order is still in effect. He said that
the shipments complained of by Consul General Skinner were those arriving
under licenses issued previous to the British instruction
referred to. He was astonished to know that the British
Government were deliberately nullifying these perfectly good
licenses, issued in good faith and under the rules as they
existed at the time of issuance. He said that according to the
terms of his agreement with the British Government the
Netherlands Oversea Trust was bound to return to the British
prize court any goods when the British Government notified the
Netherlands Oversea Trust that the request for such return was
based on information in possession of the Government leading
them to believe that the said goods were intended for their
enemies. The goods now under discussion, however, do not fall
under this clause of the contract. He said they are being held
not because they have evidence of enemy destination, because
there could be no such evidence in existence. He said they are
being held because of England’s ideas with regard to the amount
of packing-house products which Holland should consume in a
given time, thus bringing the subject under the head of what
they call their “rationing system.” The “rationing system,”
however, is based upon supplementary agreement between the
British Government and the Trust, with regard to specific items,
such as wheat, rye, corn, linseed cake and some other
commodities, but not packing-house products. These were
distinctly omitted from the “rationing agreement” because the
Netherlands Oversea Trust was not willing to agree to the
amounts allotted by the British Government. Mr. van
Vollenhoven thinks that the British Government is
now acting entirely on its own ideas of the proper ration of
packing-house products, but that it has no right to do any such
thing because this has not been agreed upon and incorporated in
the contract.
Mr. van Vollenhoven said he had been making
protests from time to time against various similar encroachments
on the contract on the part of the British Government, such, for
example, as the order to return to the prize court of the recent
gold shipments. He said that he had just lately filed another
and still stronger protest against the more flagrant violations
of the agreement and against the general lack of confidence
which the British appeared to be evincing.
The above conversation confirms a report which I had from another
source a few days ago to the effect that the Netherlands Oversea
Trust had sent to the British Government what amounted
practically to an ultimatum, stating that unless the British
Government was prepared to respect their contract with the
Netherlands Oversea Trust and to show greater confidence in
them, the Netherlands Oversea Trust was ready to go out of
business. I cannot say, of course, that the letter was couched
in just these terms, but I can quite believe that it had this
flavor.
I have [etc.]
