800.51 W 89Rumania/54: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Rumania (Jay)
22. Your 24, April 1, 10 A.M.64 Department finds Rumanian reply as summarized by you totally unsatisfactory and you are instructed to present the following note to the Foreign Office at the first suitable opportunity:
“I have the honor to inform you that I did not fail to communicate to my Government your Excellency’s note of [March 30] and to state that I have been instructed to make the following reply thereto:
‘The Government of the United States is pleased to note that the Government of Rumania has had no intention of favoring other countries to the detriment of the United States. It is, however, constrained to point out that the payments made by the Government of Rumania to certain creditor Governments on account of relief and reconstruction loans, to which reference was made in the note of October 21, 1924, from the American Chargé d’Affaires at Bucharest,65 and the payments to be made by the Government of Rumania pursuant to the agreement recently concluded in London between that Government and the Governments of Australia, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, to which reference was made in the note of March 20, 1925, from the American Minister at Bucharest, do in fact constitute a serious discrimination against the interests of the Government of the United States in favor of the other Governments in question.
The Government of the United States is able to perceive no distinction between the post-armistice loans which it made to the Government of Rumania for relief and reconstruction purposes and the relief loans made by those creditor Governments in respect of which the Government of Rumania has made or is about to make payments, which might justify such payments by Rumania while disregarding her obligation to make payments on account of her indebtedness to the United States. It is true that the United States advanced a larger sum to Rumania for relief and reconstruction purposes than did any of the other creditor Governments concerned, but it cannot believe that the Government of Rumania will maintain that no steps should now be taken to adjust its indebtedness to the United States for the reason that it is greater in amount than its corresponding indebtedness to the several Governments concerned in the London arrangement. The Government of the United States does not demand for itself treatment more favorable than that which has been accorded by Rumania to its other creditors on account of relief and reconstruction loans, but the loans made by the Government of the United States are certainly no less entitled to repayment [Page 173] than the loans made by the other Governments in question for similar purposes and the Government of the United States feels constrained to repeat that it is unable to agree that Rumania should make no payments on account of its relief and reconstruction indebtedness to it, while making payments to other Governments on account of an indebtedness toward them incurred for similar purposes.
The principle at issue, in the opinion of the Government of the United States, is one susceptible of satisfactory settlement without the delay and expense incident to the visit to Washington of a Rumanian Debt Mission. Furthermore, the Government of the United States feels that no useful purpose could be served by the visit of such a mission if, as indicated in the Rumanian Government’s note of [March 30] it should be authorized merely to offer an explanation of the failure of the Rumanian Government to present a debt funding proposal. The position of the Government of the United States is clearly set forth in the concluding paragraph of the note of March 20, 1925, from the American Minister at Bucharest, and as stated therein, the Government of the United States expects promptly to receive from the Government of Rumania an appropriate proposal for the funding of the indebtedness of the latter to the United States.’”
[Paraphrase]
When you present the above note you should make as effective use as possible of the information contained in first paragraph of Department’s No. 18, March 31, 1925. If pursuant to authorization contained in Department’s instruction of November 7, 1924,66 you have given Rumanian Government the impression that Department under certain circumstances might consider leaving the Legation in charge of a Chargé d’Affaires, you should at this time make similar intimation so that it will not appear that Department has in any way receded from its former position.
In view of the importance of these negotiations, Department desires that for the present you postpone your leave.
Your 29, April 6, noon, received, but Department does not see that it lessens the necessity for the action outlined above.
- Not printed; see despatch No. 745 and its enclosure, supra.↩
- See Department’s telegram No. 44, Oct. 15, 1924, 6 p.m., Foreign Relations, 1924, vol. ii, p. 634.↩
- Ibid., p. 637.↩