462.00R296A/19: Telegram
The Ambassador in Germany (Sackett) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 14—12:10 p.m.]
215. Visiting the German Foreign Office at noon today, I urged, for the reasons stated in the Department’s 196, 13th of November, 7 p.m., that a committee of private bankers be immediately appointed.
The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs answered that my suggestions coincided exactly with the wishes of his Government for immediate action. The difficulty, he continued, was with the Finance Minister of France, Flandin. The latter offered serious objections to beginning action on adjustment of short-term debts until after application for the Basel Committee had been made by the German Government. Flandin, according to Von Bülow, even went so far as to say that it would be disloyal to Franco-German negotiations on reparations for the Germans to make such a move. One of Von Bülow’s aims in leaving for Paris tomorrow is to have the Standstill Agreement loans dealt with by effecting the appointment of the committee.
With more conferences scheduled for today, the argument which Germany will present to the Basel Bank for the appointment of a Committee under the Young Plan was discussed again in Paris yesterday. Certain objections made yesterday by Laval with regard to the range of action which the proposed Committee will have and the convening of the Chamber of Deputies have caused delay. Nevertheless, the German Foreign Office hopes that the provisions suggested will be agreed to by the French at the conference today.
The Germans, however, adhere to the belief that the Basel Committee will find it necessary to give consideration to both the short-term debts and reparations. Otherwise it would be difficult to arrive at a genuine view of the requirements of the present economic difficulties in Germany. In spite of this, the German Foreign Office is appreciative of the fact that a separate committee which is representative of [Page 344] the private interests concerned must conduct the negotiations for the extension of the Standstill Agreement.