NO DISTRIBUTION.
Decypher.
Marquess of Lothian (Washington),
18th September, 1939.
D.
8.22 p.m.
18th September, 1939.
R.
5.00 a.m.
19th September, 1939.
No. 513.
123
Mr. Greene at the State Department asked me this morning if an answer to the question submitted by the United States Ambassador to the Foreign Office about goods in transit to China via Burma could be expedited. He said lawyers there had finally advised that, provided that adequate assurances were available, implements of war could be despatched to countries not embargoed by Neutral Powers Act, through countries at war and therefore subject to embargo. He said that a [? different] question would probably soon arise about goods for the Shanghai Municipal Police via Hongkong, for Siam via Singapore and for arms designed to equip Liberia to resist a local Nazi coup, in British and French ships touching at our ports before they reached Monrovia. In that [? case]all they want is a definite understanding that embargoed goods will not be stopped en route to Burma or elsewhere but will be allowed to go through to their destination. An early reply will oblige.
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