863.51 Relief Credits/41
The Austrian Minister (
Prochnik
) to the Secretary of State
Washington
,
March 7,
1928
.
My Dear Mr. Secretary of State: I have the
honor to enclose herewith a Memorandum concerning the present status of
deferment of a lien held against Austria by European countries.
Accept [etc.]
[Enclosure]
The Austrian Legation
to the Department of State
Memorandum
The Austrian Minister upon being told by the Economic Adviser, Mr.
Young, that an information had reached the Department of State to
the effect that the European countries holding a lien against [Page 885] Austria for relief credits
had decided to make their consent for further deferment of said lien
dependent on a funding of their credits, immediately cabled to the
Federal Chancery, Department of Foreign Affairs, for advice and
instructions, as aforereferred to information was quite in
contradiction to the answers given by the Relief Committee, the
Governments concerned and the Reparations Commission to the request
made by the Austrian Federal Government for an extension of the
period of deferment in connection with the intended loan.
The Minister of Austria was informed by his Government that it does
not know of any change in the status of the case and that the
information received by the Department of State must obviously be
based on some misapprehension, as all the creditor countries (the
United States excepted) already deferred their lien with the consent
of the Reparations Commission, while negotiations for a settlement
of the relief debts still are pending. There was originally an
intention on the part of the Creditor States to make deferment of
lien dependent on funding of relief debts, but this plan was
abandoned at the request of the Austrian Government.
