462.00R296/4925
Press Release Issued by the Department of State
Debts and Reparations
The committee of experts which has been meeting in London to work out the terms of application as between the European countries of President Hoover’s proposal has now completed its work.
Subject to formal ratification by their legislative bodies, the following governments have indicated their willingness to accept the President’s proposal: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India; and also as regards relief debts due the governments of Denmark, Holland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. The position of Greece and Yugoslavia is not yet finally determined and certain difficulties remain to be overcome before the question of their acceptance is settled.
The conclusions of the experts are in two main documents—the first a Report containing the experts’ recommendations to the interested governments relating not only to the program of repayments of suspended reparations by Germany but to repayment of other amounts suspended during the Hoover year by other European governments, the second, a Protocol, or formal agreement, relating solely to German reparation payments. The latter has been signed in London today. It is a provisional agreement which will become final upon ratification by the legislative bodies. Its provisions, however, are retroactive so as to make the suspension of payments effective as of July 1, 1931.
The terms of repayment recommended in the Report and embodied in the Protocol are, generally speaking, as follows: All suspended payments become unconditional obligations of the debtor governments to be repaid over a ten-year period beginning July 1, 1933, with interest at three per cent, from July 1, 1933. There are to be ten equal annual installments, each installment to be divided into twelve monthly payments, including principal and interest.
The Protocol covers such matters as the form of the bonds to be delivered to the reparations receiving countries on account of suspended unconditional reparations loaned to the German Railway, and the methods of handling existing contracts for deliveries in kind within the spirit of the President’s proposal. These two subjects are covered in the two annexes attached to the Protocol.
The Report of recommendations deals with the terms of repayment of suspended payments on account of interallied war debts due the [Page 175] principal creditor governments of Europe and contains a series of suggestions for the adjustment of suspended payments on account of relief debts and of various Near Eastern debt questions incidental to the President’s proposal.
The recommendations and the Protocol cover questions arising between European governments. There is no occasion, therefore, for the American Government participating in the Report or signing the Protocol. Our Government is gratified at the progress made in giving practical effect to the suspension program suggested by President Hoover on June 20th.