800.6354/160: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Kennedy)
1294. Your 2150, October 24, midnight, and 2156, October 25, 3 p.m. Todd is wiring information regarding consumption rate here to his office in London for the information of Campbell and the Embassy.
With respect to the statistics on “tin movements” to the United States in your no. 2156, please clarify as to whether these represent estimated arrivals in the United States during those periods. The consumers are certain that shipments from Malaya in November [Page 938] cannot be as much as 10,000 tons on the basis of the present very limited offerings in Singapore.
Please make every effort to get the British Government and the International Committee to recognize the essential facts that for several weeks consumers here have not been able to buy sufficient tin in the East to meet present consumption rates and that there is without doubt a ready market in the United States for much more tin than is now available. Certain factors in the present “restocking movement” indicate that it will continue for a considerable period of months, and in addition there is the definite desire on the part of this Government and American consumers to increase stocks substantially. Naturally there is cause for alarm here because current releases and the rate of release so far mentioned for the first quarter of 1940 will provide insufficient rubber [tin?] to meet consumption requirements, with no surplus available for stocks.
The labor considerations mentioned by Campbell and others should be offset by the clear indications that large additional amounts of dollar exchange could be secured during the next several months merely by making available enough tin to meet American requirements.