394.31/4–1151
The Counselor of Embassy for Economic Affairs in the United Kingdom (Baldwin) to the Secretary of State
No. 4849
Subject: Torquay Negotiations
In a recent conversation with Sir Roger Makins, Deputy Under Secretary of State, he raised the question of the failure of the United States and the United Kingdom to negotiate an agreement at Torquay which he characterized as “unfortunate.” He added that he assumed that mistakes had been made “on both sides.” I replied that in any controversy it was natural to believe that the other side was at fault. I also remarked that references of British officials, sometime before the beginning of the Torquay conference, to “unilateral concessions” by the United States, and other statements some time later by British officials, including a public statement by Mr. Wilson, President of the Board of Trade, indicating that the United Kingdom would not make concessions affecting Commonwealth preferences could be hardly regarded as conducive to an auspicious atmosphere for the conduct of the negotiations.
In a subsequent conversation with Mr. Dana Wilgress, Canadian High Commissioner in London,1 Mr. Wilgress spoke in a highly critical manner of the British handling of the negotiations with the United States at Torquay. He expressed the opinion that one of the principal reasons for the failure of the negotiations was the fact that they were dominated throughout by the Board of Trade and that the Foreign Office either did not interest itself sufficiently in them or was unable to change the attitude of Board of Trade officials, including Mr. Wilson and Sir Stephen Holmes. Mr. Wilgress said that British unwillingness to make concessions which would have made it possible to reach an agreement could certainly be regarded as a British decision to “turn its back” on trade with the United States in favor of trade with the Commonwealth and that such a decision was obviously of political as well as economic importance. From the economic standpoint, he added, it would inevitably lead to an increase in Britain’s sterling liabilities.
In a conversation today with a Foreign Office official I asked whether the Foreign Office had followed the Torquay negotiations carefully and had been active in shaping British policy with respect to the Torquay negotiations. The Foreign Office official remarked that a representative of the Foreign Office had been present at Torquay but [Page 1319] added that the Foreign Office had not been particularly active in connection with the negotiations. He expressed the opinion that he did not believe that the Foreign Office, in any event, “would have been able to change materially the British policy which was followed in connection with the negotiations.” He hurriedly added, presumably in justification of Foreign Office inaction in the matter, that no British Government today could “tamper with the preference system.”
- Wilgress had been Chairman of the Fifth Session of the Contracting Parties of GATT which sat at Torquay November 2—December 16, 1950.↩