647.116/182: Telegram
The Consul General at Sydney (Moffat) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 27—6:47 a.m.]
Your June 24, 11 a.m. I have just received a 400-word reply to my note of June 6th. This reiterates Australia’s inability any longer “to [Page 763] accept with equanimity the heavy disequilibrium in the trade of the Commonwealth with the United States” with the resulting decision “to check imports from those countries which find it impossible to trade on a reasonable basis of [practical] reciprocity.”
The key sentence reads: “Collectors of Customs in declining to issue permits for the importation of these commodities are acting under instructions and in accordance with the policy of the Government.”
Text by air mail.20
- Enclosure to despatch No. 238, June 27, 1936; not printed.↩