'Thank you for sending me a copy of your letter of the 3rd August to Dr. Pandit. I have now written to our Trade Commissioner's Office in Delhi enclosing copies of the amended version of the recommendations and asking them to pass these to the Ministry of Commerce. I will let you know in due course what the Indian reactions, if any, are. I think passing on these recommendations in this way will serve as a useful preliminary to Lane-Petter's visit. As soon as details of this are fixed up, we would like to send advance information to Delhi, and our people there will, I am sure, be able to help him, particularly at the start by giving him introductions and arranging interviews.'

'EC. 1601/5/1

CONFIDENTIAL

...

2. The Medical Research Council are considering sending out a representative more or less permanently to Delhi to co-ordinate monkey supplies for the United Kingdom, and incidentally to cut out the dealers. Please keep this absolutely confidential for the present. If this does come off it will go a very long way towards sorting things out.'

'...

2. From our discussion it emerged that the Medical Research Council will appreciated that the cost of monkeys was likely to go up, but accepted that there was advantage in conditioning the animals prior to departure and reducing the wastage here.'

'CONFIDENTIAL

No. 1601/5/1

...

6. A certain amount of difficulty attaches to Glaxo acting as permanent agent for the total United Kingdom demand. In fact when the Medical Research Council had a meeting some time ago with Glaxo and Burroughs Wellcome, they did suggest to Glaxo (as being the only firm having Indian agents), that they should take this on, but Glaxo's reaction was not very encouraging. Their job, they said, was to export pharmaceuticals and not to trade in livestock. There was also some complication about their head office being in Bombay. In the long term too, there might be some difficulty over employing one commercial concern to act as agent for their own imports and for those of others...

...'

'EC.1601/5/1

...

2. You will, of course, appreciate that the decision on the part of the Government of India to introduce a licensing procedure arose from the delicate associations involved on account of the place of the monkey in Hindu mythology and to the Indian Government's desire that exporting arrangements should be carried out under proper conditions. With all countries becoming interested in polio vaccine, there has been a boom in monkey exports and conditions have deteriorated, so we understand.

3. The Medical Research Council have drawn up, in common with other interested organisations here, a set of recommendations on the humane transport of monkeys by air which the United Kingdom air transport intend to adopt, and which the Council is giving a fairly wide circulation, e.g. they have passed the recommendations to the United States Embassy here and will be sending copies to interested organisations in the United States. They have also sent copies to the Indian Medical Research Council, and we are passing copies to the Indian Ministry of Commerce with the information that we will be adopting, so far as our own imports of monkeys are concerned, these recommendations.

4. As Canada is also interested in exporting monkeys from India for polio vaccine research, we feel that the Canadian Government might be interested to know of these recommendations, and I accordingly enclose two copies which you might care to pass to the appropriate department. In no sense is there any suggestion that the Canadians should also adopt them, although it is quite possible that they might wish to go in for something on similar lines.'

'MR. THOMSON

This afternoon I saw Mr. T.E. Patterson, who is the Delhi end of Shamrock Farms Limited, the main agency through whom monkeys are obtained in the U.K. We had already been told that Patterson was coming to the U.K. and would be calling. In fact, he called on General Hance's before coming here, and it was in General Hance's Office that I saw him.

2. Patterson says that the monkeys situation has taken a serious turn for the worse with the release of information about the Salk vaccine and the entry of a number of countries into the monkey market. Apart from the U.S.A. and the U.K., Australia, Canada, Denmark, Western Germany and Switzerland were all now actively interested and trying to obtain monkeys in India. This increase of demand (the number of monkeys licensed to all countries concerned by the Indian Government now well exceeded the immediately available supplies) had led to the emergence of a number of "mushroom" exporting concerns whose only interest was to profit from the situation and who were supplying monkeys of all ages and sizes. It appears that weight and age or an important issue where monkeys for research purposes are concerned. The first link in the chain of supply was the trappers who worked in the jungles, and they also had got wind of the situation and had put up their prices and were insisting that exporters accept all the monkeys that they caught, whether these were of the required standard or not. There was thus a situation in which the price of monkeys was being forced up and exporters were being forced to accept monkeys completely unsuitable for research purposes which, in his case, Patterson said, he had to release. Furthermore, the working standards of the new exporters were not always of a desirable level which could attract unfavourable publicity in India.

...

5. All of this is very sudden and we have not much to go on except what Patterson tells us. He is the leading exporter; has been dealing with monkeys for some time and is understood to be reputable. He is obviously concerned about the present situation, but, as his memorandum shows, is not himself a very clear thinker. His suggestions, such as they are, are clearly self-interested ones, but I think that he has some conscience on the matter.

...

7. Some kind of agreement between the importing countries in order to regulate the situation would appear to be desirable and to be in everybody's interest, although this side of things is going to require a great deal more thought. In the first place, it is obviously necessary that we should know more of what is in the Indian Government's mind. We have not been informed officially that a time limit is being imposed on the quotas licenced [sic] for the U.K. or that thereafter imports may only be carried out by one organisation. The first step must therefore be, I think, to ask Delhi for information. It may also be desirable to inform Washington and Ottowa of Patterson's visits in case he should call on our representatives while he is there. It will also be necessary to have a meeting with the U.K. organisations concerned. I have already had a preliminary word with Mr. Whittaker of the Medical Research Council who is content to leave the initiative on this to us.'

'Mr Thomson

At (121) is a half-baked letter from the Ministry of Agriculture, asking us to consider making representations to the Indian and Pakistan Govts. on

a) the enforcement of acclimatisation periods for animals to be exported.

b) the provision of hostels for animals en route.

These proposals were made by the RSCPA at a meeting with govt. reps on 12 Nov. There is no indication that the Min. of Agriculture suggest[?] these proposals are desirable or necessary. I see the experts at the meeting from the Min. of Agriculture and the Min. of Health expressed grave doubts about acclimatization periods.

I do not feel the High Commission have any locus standi to make representations to the Indian and Pak. Govts - unless UK interests are directly involved. The monkeys are not UK citizens!

I submit a draft.

GLS[immons]'