Cablegram 41 [1] CANBERRA, 18 March 1943
SECRET
Please see reply dated 9th March from Prime Minister, Canada [2], to Dominions Office telegrams D.109 [3] and D.121. [4]
This deprecates possibility of United Kingdom and United States draft plans [5] coming into competition with each other and suggests that in order to avoid this the parallel discussions now under way should be explanatory only, and should be followed by a conference of experts of the United Nations in Washington with the United States plan as a basis for discussion.
Our Inter-departmental Committee agrees that every effort should be made to avoid appearance of conflict between the two plans and appreciates that it may be necessary to combine them in some way at a later date or to agree upon a third plan.
At the same time they feel that the present provisions of the United States plan are seriously inadequate from the Australian point of view and some anxiety is felt at suggestion that it should be taken as basis for discussion.
Committee feels that when expert discussions commence both plans should be discussed on equal footing. If this were done it should be possible to iron out main differences.
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1 Repeated to the Canadian Prime Minister as no. 9 and to Dixon as no. 50.
2 Mackenzie King’s cablegram was repeated to the Commonwealth Govt on 10 March. See copy on file AA:A989, 43/735/56/3.
3 Document 129.
4 Dispatched 3 March. On the file cited in note 2.
5 i.e. for the proposed Clearing Union and Stabilisation Fund plans.
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[AA:A989, 43/735/56/3]