File No. 812.516/156

The Secretary of State to the French Ambassador

No. 1808

Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your excellency’s two notes, dated, respectively, December 9 and December 28, 1916,4 relating to the reported action of the de facto Government of Mexico in violating the property rights of the National Bank of Mexico and the Bank of London and Mexico, both of which are located in Mexico City, Mexico. With your note of December 9, you enclose a copy of a protest which your excellency’s Government addressed under date of October 18, 1916, to the representative at Paris of the de facto Government of Mexico, in behalf of the French citizens whose investments in banking institutions in Mexico are affected by certain Mexican banking decrees. Your excellency expresses the hope that the Government of the United States will support the action of your Government in protesting against the apparent purpose of the de facto Government of Mexico to force into liquidation the National Bank of Mexico and the Bank of London and Mexico.

In reply I have the honor to inform your excellency that the Department’s representative near General Carranza was instructed, by telegraph, on February 6, 1917, to lodge with the de facto Government [Page 1009] of Mexico an appropriate protest against its apparent purpose to force into liquidation the National Bank of Mexico and the Bank of London and Mexico, in which many French, British and other nationals are deeply interested as stockholders, and in which many American citizens are believed to be depositors.

Accept [etc.]

Robert Lansing