1. The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations asked the High Commissioners to meet him at 10 a.m. this morning. He had not yet received any information beyond last night's press report of Colonel Nasser's announced expropriation of the Suez Canal Company. The report reached a Downing Street dinner being given for the King of Iraq before it broke up, but was not on last night's wireless news.

2. The Prime Minister is meeting Parliament at 11 a.m. this morning and will make a short statement, the text of which is given in my immediately following telegram.¹⁰¹ The Cabinet has been called for 11.15 a.m. this morning, and consultations with the French and Americans, which began very late last night, are expected to continue during the day.

3. At the meeting in the CRO this morning, Lord Home said that the United Kingdom Government took "a very grave view" of yesterday's developments, which had taken them completely by surprise. There had been a good deal of speculation about the effect of Egypt's economic and political relations with the USSR of the withdrawal of the offer of assistance on the Aswan dam, but nobody had thought of the vulnerability of the Suez Canal Company in this new context.

4. The discussion at the CRO was brief and desultory. I said that I assumed the Foreign Office would be considering the advantages and disadvantages of bringing this new situation to the notice of the Security Council. I also said that I hoped the United Kingdom would not be too quick to gather too many spears to its own bosom. In the history of last week's developments, the first and major decision had been taken by the United States. The Company's headquarters were in Paris; its operating staff were French. There was a very wide general interest in the maintenance and free operation of the canal. It would be a mistake to measure this in terms of the national ownership of vessels using it. The countries whose imports and exports passed through the canal all had an interest. It seemed to me it would be wiser to identify the United Kingdom interest with these general interests as much as possible.

5. Home said that he hoped later in the day or early this evening to arrange another meeting with Commonwealth Representatives, possibly with, but more probably after, the meeting that the Foreign Secretary is arranging with the French Ambassador and the American Chargé d'Affaires.

[N.A.] ROBERTSON