811.20 (D) Regulations/891
The Japanese Embassy to the Department of State83
The Japanese Embassy has the honor to refer to its memorandum under date of November 19, 1940,84 with regard to the question of export licenses for machine tools, and to state that it has come to the notice of the Japanese Embassy that under date of November 25 [27], 1940, the letter of the Department of State to all Collectors of Customs in the country85 advised them that “tool and cutter grinders, universal and plain, hand feed”, together with certain other types of machine tools, should also require a license for exportation on and after the 11th of December, 1940.
The Japanese Embassy had occasion in the memorandum cited above to call the attention of the Department of State to the fact that these machine tools were given as not requiring export licenses in the letter dated July 27, 1940 from the Administrator of Export Control to the Collectors of all Customs Houses in the United States.85 Meanwhile, it had been noted from a press report dated August 17, 1940 that the Department of State and the Bureau of Customs had issued a list of interpretations which advised the customs authorities that no license would be required, until further notice, for these types of machine tools.
From the preceding, the Japanese Embassy infers that the “tool and cutter grinders, universal and plain, hand feed,”—the exact types [Page 618] of machine tools cited in Section III of the above mentioned memorandum—are not subject to the requirements of the export licensing system until the deadline of December 11, 1940 is reached.
In view of the circumstances, the Embassy deems itself entitled to request the Department of State to give due consideration to the Embassy’s desire contained in Section III of said memorandum and be good enough to advise all Collectors of Customs in the United States to permit exportation of any of the aforesaid machine tools without license, and not to withhold any longer the shipment of such, “if it shall have been laden on board the vessel on which it is to be exported prior to midnight ending the day of December 10, 1940.”
- Handed to the Assistant Secretary of State by the Counselor of the Japanese Embassy during a conversation on November 30; for memorandum of conversation, see Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. ii, p. 230.↩
- Not printed, but see memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State, November 19, ibid., p. 229.↩
- Not printed.↩
- Not printed.↩