838.51/948: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Minister in Haiti ( Bailly-Blanchard )

69. Your 53, August 20, 11 a.m., and 54, August 21, 2 p.m.

Department is gratified by receiving the very full information furnished and desires you to continue reporting as fully upon all subsequent developments.

It is regretted that you did not carry out instruction contained in Department’s August 12, 6 p.m., and suspend the action taken in withholding salaries for 30 days; later, after receipt by you of some intimation that Haitian Government desired once more to cooperate with this Government, notifying the President that this Government would consider that the cooperation desired must entail the carrying out of the program suggested by you. The Department desired that the President and his Cabinet be afforded the opportunity of changing the antagonistic attitude which they had assumed without the appearance of doing so under direct compulsion.

The Department has received today formal assurances from the Haitian Government that “the members of the Haitian Government, still convinced of the efficacious assistance and cordial cooperation of the United States, are ready to carry out for the best interest of the nation such directions as may be given it by the great allied and free power”. The Department will inform the Haitian Government that it considers carrying out of the following program essential in the interests of the Haitian people, and an evidence of the desire of that Government to cooperate once more with the Government of the United States: the repeal of the laws passed in violation of the agreement of August 24, 1918 as enumerated in your telegram of August [Page 782] 20, 11 a.m.; and the enactment of laws placing in operation Section 15 of the Contract of the Retrait, providing for the leasing of state land on long delay terms, and reaffirming the gourde as the legal money of Haiti. The Department does not consider it necessary or appropriate to insist at this time that the Government of Haiti, as an evidence of its desire to cooperate with this Government in carrying out the obligations of the Treaty, establish the modifications of the bank charter or approve the transfer of the charter to the new bank. If the attitude of the Haitian Government changes and the program above mentioned is carried out, negotiations regarding the modifications to the bank charter and its transfer can then be once more undertaken by the National City Bank with the Haitian Government with such support on the part of the Financial Adviser as he may consider necessary.

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Colby