Northern (N): Soviet Union (NS). Merchant Shipping of Soviet Union

A file of correspondence on Soviet shipping. The file contains a debate between the Foreign Office and the British Admiralty over whether to offer facilities for degaussing (i.e. reducing the magnetic field created by a ship's hull to prevent mines being attracted to it) to Soviet vessels in British ports. The Foreign Office could find no objections, but it was eventually determined that to offer these facilities would be a breach of the Paris Agreements. The file also discusses the position of the crew of a Soviet vessel stranded off the British coast; possible Soviet admission to the Permanent International Association of Navigation Congresses; and a dispute between the British government and the Soviet Union over a British-owned vessel, bound for Siberia, which had been requisitioned by the British government to serve in the Eastern Mediterranean.