Navicerts: Procedure in Relation to Applications For. Note by Secy Covering Letter from M.E.W.

20th January, 1941. I am directed by the Ministry of Economic Warfare to inform you that he has had under consideration the policy to be adopted with regard to navicert applications for the shipment to Portugal of materials of military importance such as trinitrotoluol. As the Joint Intelligence Committee will be aware, imports into Portugal are now as a general rule rationed by reference to the requirements of the home market, as calculated from pre-war figures of imports and exports. Such a method of statistical control is however not easily applicable to orders by the Government for armament purposes, since normal trade figures do not provide any criterion.