611.5131/521
The Ambassador in France ( Herrick ) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 23.]
Sir: I have the honor to report that I have just received the Department’s cable No. 108 of April 13th, 2 P.M., regarding commercial negotiations with France, and I hasten to make the following observations regarding the draft of the commercial treaty.
[Page 636]The Department states that there is no reason to ask less of France than of other countries in the matter of most-favored-nation treatment and that it proposes to submit Article 7 in substantially the form employed in the Treaty with Germany. I wish respectfully to submit, however, that it would seem less a question of the existence of a reason for asking less of France than of other countries than a question of the practical possibility of getting what is asked for, and, as I reported in my cable No. 161 of April 9th, there appears to be no chance that the French Government will consent to an agreement giving mostfavored-nation treatment de jure. It is a settled policy of the French Government not to accord such treatment and it has not done so to any other country. The Germans, in their long drawn out negotiations, have not succeeded in securing, nor do they hope to secure, more than most-favored-nation treatment de facto. It is the firm opinion of the Commercial Attache and myself that it is out of the question to secure most-favored-nation treatment de jure from the French unless it should be after a long, wearisome, costly, and unnecessary tariff war.
I therefore have the honor to repeat my suggestion that, in order to avoid coming to an immediate impasse in the negotiations, the text of Article 7 be remodeled.
I have [etc.]
Counselor of Embassy