Office of the Historian

724.3415/3702: Telegram

The Consul at Geneva (Gilbert) to the Secretary of State

Geneva, May 19, 1934—10 p.m.
[Received May 19—8:42 p.m.]

83. The Council this afternoon took the following action in the Chaco matter:

1.
The rapporteur submitted a brief report reviewing the situation and embodying the text of a letter addressed by Wilson to the Secretary General quoting the Department’s circular telegram of May 18, 7 p.m.43
2.
Adopted without discussion and without dissent the following resolution: [Page 67]
A
—The Council decides to meet in extraordinary session on May 30th, 1934. It instructs its Committee of Three to continue to give all its attention to the question and in the interval between the sessions to take any measures that it may deem advisable.
B
—The Council invites the Governments of Bolivia and Paraguay to reexamine between now and the opening of its extraordinary session the solution proposed by the Chaco Commission and the arguments militating in favor of that solution and of the prompt reestablishment of peace.
C
—Recalling the action started last year with a view to prohibiting the export or transit of arms and war material intended for Bolivia or Paraguay the Council begs the Committee of Three at once to resume the examination of this question and to proceed to the consultations that are indispensable in order that measures may be taken if need be at the time of the next extraordinary session.
3.
I understand that the “consultations” will be initiated by sending identic communications to the following states regarded as manufacturing states intimately concerned with the procuring of arms by the belligerents: Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Yugoslavia, United States, Russia, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru. These communications will be sent out tonight by the League authorities, the one to the United States being addressed direct to the Secretary of State.
4.
Comment follows.

Gilbert
  1. Not printed.↩