462.00 R 296/381: Telegram
The Ambassador in Great Britain (Kellogg) to the Secretary of State
224. My 223, June 24, 8 p.m. The following is memorandum referred to:
“The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs presents his compliments to the United States Ambassador and has the honor herewith to confirm in writing the observations which he was able to make to His Excellency in the course of their recent verbal discussion and in regard to which further explanations have since been furnished to His Excellency by the permanent Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
Secretary of State has been in personal consultation with the Belgian Prime Minister and more recently with the new French Prime Minister regarding the steps to be taken to put into immediate operation the scheme embodied in the Dawes report. This report has already been approved by all the Governments concerned, who have declared their readiness to adopt it in its entirety. The informal discussions which have taken place with the Belgian and French Ministers have centered therefore not so much upon the principle of the report as upon the exact measures which must be taken to give effect to its recommendations. It has been generally agreed that the following measures will be best calculated to secure this object.
The recommendations embodied in the Dawes report will impose upon Germany obligations altogether beyond what was laid down by the Treaty of Versailles. It will be necessary therefore that these recommendations should be embodied in some kind of formal document or arrangement to be signed by the powers who will be responsible for their execution. If Germany is to give her assent she for her part will justifiably expect to receive as a counterpart to the obligations which she will assume in adopting these new undertakings a corresponding undertaking on the part of the other powers that the [Page 29] economic and fiscal sanctions which have in the past been imposed upon Germany shall be withdrawn.
It would be undesirable to give to the instrument of agreement a form which would have the appearance of a treaty explicitly modifying the Treaty of Versailles. It is felt that the most convenient form will be that of a protocol which might contain provisions covering the following points:
- (1)
- An undertaking by all the signatory Governments to execute the recommendations of the Dawes report in their entirety.
- (2)
- A pledge by the German Government to put into execution by a given date all the legislative or other measures prescribed by the report.
- (3)
- An undertaking by the Allied Governments to withdraw by a given date—which might be fixed at 14 days after the date indicated in (2) above—all the fiscal and economic sanctions and other arrangements affecting the economic activities of the German Reich and now in force in German territory.
- (4)
- Agreement by the Allied Governments that these sanctions would not be reimposed except in the case of flagrant failure on the part of the German Government to fulfill the conditions embodied in the report itself and the designation of an authority who would be charged if necessity arose with the duty of deciding whether such default had indeed taken place. This duty cannot properly be entrusted to the Reparation Commission whose functions are strictly determined by the Treaty of Versailles since the engagements to be entered into under the Dawes scheme lie to a certain extent outside the scope of that treaty. Some impartial and independent authority will have to be agreed upon who could properly undertake this duty and whose decisions would be accepted as binding on all the parties concerned.
- (5)
- A provision that any dispute as to the proper interpretation of the articles of the protocol shall be referred to some independent arbitral body.
For the purpose of negotiating the terms of such a protocol some further discussion will clearly be necessary and it is now proposed that an inter-Allied conference shall meet in London on July 16th next to be followed, so soon as agreement has been reached, by a fuller conference in which Germany will be invited to participate. The powers who will be asked to send representatives to this conference will be France, Italy, Japan, Belgium and such of the minor powers as are entitled to reparation. These minor powers will however it is hoped be represented merely by their Ministers accredited to the Court of St. James.
The conference will be strictly confined to an examination of the measures necessary to give effect to the recommendations of the Dawes committee.” Such questions as security and inter-Allied debts are to be explicitly excluded. With this limitation the conference should be able to conclude its discussions within a short period. One week may perhaps suffice.
[Page 30]The greatest importance is attached by the Allied Governments to the presence at this conference of representatives of the United States of America. It is not for the Allied Governments and still less for His Majesty’s Government to suggest in what particular capacity the United States representatives might attend: this is a matter which must be left entirely to the United States Government who can themselves decide what can properly be done. There is no desire to cause them any embarrassment or expectation that they will take any action which for constitutional or other reasons they may be reluctant to take. The Secretary of State ventures however to remind the United States Ambassador that the report was framed under the direction and stimulus of a citizen of the United States and that but for the moral authority and technical experience of General Dawes and his assistants the report might never have been agreed upon or might have proved less decisive and less widely acceptable.
The success of the scheme outlined by General Dawes must depend predominantly on the flotation of the contemplated loan, the subscriptions for which will inevitably have to come largely from the United States of America. In examining the measures by which the report can be put into operation the powers will therefore desire to give particular weight to the possible views and feelings of the United States public; and they would be somewhat embarrassed in this endeavor if the United States Government were to hold themselves entirely aloof from the discussion.
It is not, however, merely on such incidental reasoning that Mr. MacDonald desires to ask Mr. Kellogg to enlist the cooperation of his Government in the difficult and vital negotiations which are so shortly to open. The Dawes report has placed the problem of German reparation on a more expert and a more practicable basis; it has at the same time given to the problem a scope which is wider and for that reason more humane. His Majesty’s Government would deeply regret if the discussions were again to be restricted solely to those powers who have a too direct interest in the matter and if the moral influence of the United States which contributed in so essential a manner to the framing of the report were to be withdrawn at the moment when Europe is intent upon its execution.
The Secretary of State would therefore be indebted to the United States Ambassador if he would now lay these considerations before his Government and would impress upon them the desirability in the general interest of their consenting in whatever form may seem to them advisable to participate in the impending conference. Should the United States Government see their way to meet the wishes of the Allies in this respect the Secretary of State expresses the hope that in selecting an American representative choice may be made of a personality whose name and position will carry weight both in the United States and in Europe and so reinforce the authority with which the conclusions to be arrived at by the conference will be generally received”.
- Telegram in three sections.↩