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We have felt that the matter might be best approached by having a senior official of the Department of External Affairs visit St. Pierre and inform the Administrator that the Canadian Government, in the interests of Canadian security and in fact North American security generally, consider this supervision essential, and to express the hope that the Administrator will see his way clear to co-operate. Should the Administrator object to this supervision, such rejection would appear to be prima facie evidence that suspicions with respect to the use to which the transmitting stations on the Islands may be put are well founded.

The question would then immediately arise as to the course to be taken as a consequence.

In that connection we are considering the advisability of sending to the island, either with the senior official or subsequent upon the receipt of word from him, four technical radio inspectors. These latter would be under the charge of a member of the Royal Canadian Navy, probably of petty officer rank, who would himself be responsible to our Acting Consul in St. Pierre. The technical radio inspectors would be directed to pre-censor all incoming and outgoing wireless and cable messages and to supervise all radio transmitting stations on the Islands. It is proposed that they should be taken to St. Pierre in a corvette or minesweeper. The Administrator would then be informed that the Canadian Government attach such importance to this matter that in the circumstances the Commander of the corvette had been instructed to leave a detachment of ratings in the Island in charge of the petty officer, to protect technicians and to see that there is no interference with the supervisors in the performance of their duties.

I recognise that with relations between Vichy and Berlin what they are, just at this time, and the situation in the Orient what it is action of the kind might be interpreted by Vichy as an effort by Canada to take control, if not possession of the Island of St. Pierre and Miquelon a French Colonial possession; and that Vichy might seek to find in the incident particularly at a moment when Darlan is collaborating more closely with Hitler an excuse to turn over the French fleet to Germany as a means of protecting French Colonial possessions.

The situation has itself bearing of course on what is taking place in North Africa and also upon the attitude which the United States has taken towards French Colonial possessions in the Western Hemisphere and particularly in the Caribbean.

In the circumstances I have felt that any action on Canada's part in the matter should be delayed until after we had ascertained the views of the Governments of the United Kingdom and of the United States in reference thereto. I shall be grateful to receive at the earliest convenience an expression of your own views in the matter. Meanwhile I am making a similar request to the Government of the United States,

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