Mr. Jenkins telephoned me last evening about the question of discussions with Mr. Scott. He said that as there had been delay in making any progress with the matter he had that morning telephoned to Mr. Scott who said he had just got his Minister's permission to come to London for discussions; and Mr. Jenkins suggested that I should come to London for a discussion with himself and Mr. Scott about matters of trade arising out of the Agreement, and he further suggested that the week beginning the 9th January would be a convenient time. He added that Mr. Scott had now undertaken to prepare a Memorandum setting out the points he wished to have discussed.

I told Mr. Jenkins that I thought there would be no difficulty about my going to London if it was understood that the discussion is not to be confined to the points to be raised by Mr. Scott; I thought it would be regarded as essential from the point of view of the Irish Government that we should also be in a position to discuss the other matters on the list which I had already furnished to him or at any rate some of them. Mr. Jenkins said that he himself is extremely anxious to have the discussions started over the widest possible field, but that the difficulty is to get Northern Ministers to agree to have them discussed; they are not now apparently prepared even to allow Mr. Scott to come to Dublin. Mr. Jenkins is himself quite prepared to come to Dublin, though it is not very clear how that would advance matters; he felt that if once we could arrange to meet there might be some possibility of getting the discussions with the North extended to the item in which we are interested. I pointed out that there could be no inducement for the Irish Government to give any sort of concession to the North if the Northern attitude is going to be an absolute refusal even to discuss matters of common concern. I promised Mr. Jenkins that I would think the matter over and let him know my views in the course of the next few days.