462.00R294/738: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Germany (Schurman)
117. The Associated Press having received a report from Berlin that the German Government had announced the conclusion of an agreement [Page 1106] with the United States, the following statement by the Acting Secretary of the Treasury was issued for release in the morning papers Sunday, December 29:84
“The State Department and the Treasury Department have for some weeks past conducted conversations with the German Government with a view to drafting a proposed agreement covering payments by Germany to the United States on account of Army Costs and Mixed Claims in the annual amounts recommended by the Young Committee of Experts. The two Governments are in accord as to the form and terms of such an agreement, but it cannot be definitely concluded until the Executive Branch of the Government has been so authorized by the Congress. The purpose of the negotiations was to enable the Executive Branch of the Government to submit to the Congress in definite form an agreement acceptable to the German Government so that the Congress before granting the necessary authority would have before it the form of the agreement.85
The schedule of payments conforms to the annuities proposed by the Young Committee for the United States. From each of the annuities to be received, 40,800,000 reichmarks are to be allocated to the satisfaction of Mixed Claims and the balance to the satisfaction of our Government’s claims on account of Army Costs. This is substantially in accord with the program outlined at the White House conference of May 19, 1929, which was attended by a number of the leaders of both Houses of Congress.
The form of the agreement and the provisions in respect of postponement, generally speaking, follow the agreements heretofore negotiated for the settlement of the debts owed the United States by foreign governments. The execution of this agreement is contingent, of course, upon the Young Plan coming into effect. In the meanwhile the United States retains all of its existing rights.”
Mail copy to Wilson.
- See Annual Report of the Secretary of the Treasury … 1930, p. 334.↩
- The text of the agreement, subsequently signed on June 23, 1930, pursuant to act of Congress, June 5, 1930 (46 Stat. 500), is printed in Annual Report of the Secretary of the Treasury … 1930, p. 341, and in League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. cvi, p. 121.↩