Memorandum by Joseph P. Walshe regarding relief aid to Europe

Sir John Maffey came to see me this morning, and, in the course of a talk about other matters, I returned to the question of sending a food ship abroad. I admitted that a great many of our people were a bit suspicious that the British authorities did not want us to participate in any humanitarian enterprise in regard to Europe just because they did not like our neutrality and wanted it to remain an unrelieved evil.

I wondered whether we could not try some new line. Would the British authorities be helpful if the Irish Red Cross should offer, say, 1,000 tons of oats or of potatoes to the French Red Cross? Would they allow the French to come here to pick up such a cargo? Or would the British ship it themselves?

Maffey said he thought that idea would be much more acceptable and he would make immediate inquiries.