863.51 Relief Credits/204: Telegram
The Consul at Geneva (Blake) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received 2:40 p.m.]
From Wilson:2 Reference Department’s telegram reparation 79, June 15, 2 p.m., 1929, to Embassy Paris3 regarding Austrian debt settlement. The question now arises whether the Department prefers that this matter be dealt with by the Reparation Commission as contemplated in article 6 of the draft agreement4 or whether the Commission should take no action in view of the fact that the Hague agreement of January 20, 1930, concerning Austria5 (which will doubtless be ratified shortly by the required number of countries) provided that the first charge upon Austrian assets and revenues in favor of reparation will cease to be operative. If the Department desires the Commission to act in the matter, such action had better be taken at the next meeting which will be held towards the end of this month and which will perhaps be the last meeting at which the Commission would still possess power to take the action called for under the draft agreement. I recently asked George of my office in Paris to submit informally the following draft decision to the principal delegations at the Reparation Commission; I am now advised that the British and French have no objections and that the Italian representative said he personally was in agreement and that he felt his Government would probably have no objections since recent difficulties between Italy and Austria had now been arranged, but that he would consult with his Government to confirm this:
“The Reparation Commission,
Considering the contingent agreement (annex 3505 H 1, 2) between [Page 392] the Federal Government of the Republic of Austria and the Government of the United States of America relative to the refunding of the principal and interest of the relief bonds, series B of 1920, by which Austria is indebted to the United States in the principal amount of $24,055,708.92,
Takes note that the bonds to be issued by Austria to the United States under this agreement are in substitution for and in refunding of the above-mentioned relief bond, series B of 1920, in the principal amount of $24,055,708.92 and accrued interest, and agrees that these bonds shall enjoy the same security as the bonds of relief series B 1920, and shall be a first charge upon all the assets and revenues of Austria, and shall have priority over costs of reparation under the Treaty of St. Germain6 or under any treaty or agreement supplementary thereto, or under any arrangements concluded between Austria and the Allied and Associated Powers during the armistice, signed on November 3, 1918.”7
It is possible that some delegation may insist on adding to the foregoing the phrase appearing at the end of the penultimate paragraph of the text of the original relief bond of 1920, beginning “without prejudice to the obligations of Austria” and ending “by an interested power”. If this should be insisted on, I assume there could be no objection from our point of view.
I therefore respectfully request early instructions by telegraph as to (1) whether the Department desires the Commission to act in the matter, and (2), if so, whether the suggested draft decision is satisfactory. The foregoing is of course all subject to the Italian Government concurring in the action of the Commission.
- Edwin C. Wilson, First Secretary of Embassy in France, and American unofficial representative on the Reparation Commission.↩
- See footnote 66, Foreign Relations, 1928, vol. i, p. 923.↩
- Austrian Debt Settlement: Hearings before the Committee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives, 70th Cong., 2d sess., on H. J. Res. 340, etc. (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1928), pt. 2, p. 13.↩
- League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. civ, p. 413.↩
- Treaties, Conventions, etc., 1910–1923, vol. iii, p. 3149.↩
- Foreign Relations, Paris Peace Conference, 1919, vol. ii, p. 175.↩