500.A15a3/1594: Telegram
The Chargé in Great Britain (Atherton) to the Secretary of State
183. From Marriner: This morning Atherton and I saw Craigie and the details of the present Franco-Italian situation were discussed. No new information was available on this subject beyond the suggestion outlined in Atherton’s telegram No. 169, June 5, 6 p.m., for an agreement to last 5 years which has not been put forward by the British Government as their plan, but which Craigie feels may emerge from the discussion which it is understood will be undertaken, after the re-constitution of the French Government on June 13, directly between Massigli and Rosso. It is felt by Craigie that the British Government would not, under present circumstances, be willing even to go this far and certainly would not be willing to consider it until they knew that the united French and Italian approval had been given it. A favorable answer has been received from Italy and no answer whatever from France to the British Government’s memorandum of April 25 (see Embassy’s 123, April 27, 6 p.m.), on which memorandum the official position of the British Government still remains based. The statistics of the French and Italian agreement, incidentally, were gone over by me with Craigie, and we found that the three countries had been using January 1, 1931, as a date for comparison, and the tables that have been agreed upon between them as a basis for discussion are being forwarded by me.
It is Craigie’s feeling that the opposition of the British, which was necessary to such a plan, was based on their fear that the use of the escape clause of the Treaty at that late date would not be understood by public opinion which envisaged the possibility of its use at present. [Page 422] It was my feeling, I told him, that the Conference set for 1935 would be able to take care of that element, since both publicly and privately the whole matter would then have to be threshed out.
Pains were taken by Craigie to explain to me that since Mr. Henderson’s entry into the disarmament negotiations last March and the choice falling upon him for the Chairmanship of the forthcoming Disarmament Conference,30 full direction of disarmament negotiations on behalf of the British Government had been assumed by him. It was my feeling that this remark was made significantly to me by Craigie, as it preceded a change of appointment which the Foreign Minister made to receive me alone at 3 o’clock this afternoon at the House of Commons.
The conversation with Henderson began by my alluding to your desires to be absolutely au courant with the entire disarmament situation before your departure for Italy on the 24th, and I added that the whole subject as it then appeared had been gone over just before my departure about two weeks ago, in a conference with Morrow and Gibson.
Reiteration was made by Mr. Henderson of what Craigie had told me in the morning that the British Government still must go on the basis of its memorandum of April 25, and would await French and Italian initiative for any other suggestions; the British were aware that there was in the mind of Massigli and Rosso an informal suggestion for the agreement to be limited to 5 years on the outline of the Bases of Agreement. It was realized by Mr. Henderson that the instability of the French Government had necessitated a delay up to the present, but he hoped that shortly more progress might be made, immediately after the re-constitution of the Government on the 13th, and he said that Briand had been as optimistic at Geneva as usual and had said that the decision must soon go back to the politically responsible persons.
Mr. Henderson fully agreed with you that it was essential that some progress be made on this subject in order to facilitate the meeting of the February Disarmament Conference, and your very kind suggestion for informal conferences to take place between the different powers in preparation of the agenda was recalled by him. He was reminded by me that the press thought that the first of these conferences had already taken place with the Germans at Chequers,31 and he said that practically no mention of disarmament was made, as the entire time was taken up by the Germans in outlining their financial difficulties, [Page 423] which were very serious in his opinion. Mr. Henderson expects to accompany the Prime Minister on a return visit to Berlin, he said, which he hopes to arrange in about a month; he said that he would definitely go after the German angle of the disarmament question at that time, so that when you are in London he will be able to discuss this phase with you. According to him, the only element of disarmament which was touched upon by the Germans at all was their desire that any treaty which might be entered into should include them on a basis of “equality”, a phase which he said he did not fully understand, as the subject had not been probed by him, but he felt that in all probability it meant that Germany desired that special disabilities not applicable to other nations should not be applied to her. He said in addition that he hoped to be able to use Germany’s disarmament situation in a general conference, not as a basis of increased armament for Germany, but rather for reduction on the part of others.
According to him, there had been a great deal of talk about a possible postponement of the conference, but he said that such postponement could not be had. There would have to be considered no doubt the fact of the French elections in May, 1932, but this presumably could be taken care of by some cessation of plenary sessions or some recess. It was his idea that there be a session beginning February 2 and closing in the middle of March at the Easter holidays, after which the commissions set up during that period should continue their functions in preparation for holding, presumably in June, further plenary sessions. It was his feeling that these sessions would no doubt resolve themselves into technical committees on navy, army, and air and possibly a legal committee, and above all a “bureau” which, when I asked him, he described as being the League’s method by which a steering committee is designated. He himself would expect to be able to be absent from Geneva from the Easter vacation until the plenary session in June, and he felt that this might be done by the heads of delegations, although, of course, in the interim it would be necessary to keep members of the delegation in Geneva.
Mr. Henderson, in discussing the possible attitude of the French to further moves on disarmament, said that the proposal for an Austro-German Customs Union had come at a most inopportune moment, and it was announced in a very unfortunate manner. The suggestion had readily been accepted by the French at Geneva that the matter be referred to the World Court, but British support for their point of view before the Court was apparently presupposed by them. …
When the conversation, which lasted about three-quarters of an hour, closed, he said how very glad he was that you were coming to Europe this summer, and that he did not expect that Parliament would rise before the early days of August, and so would look forward [Page 424] to seeing you in London, when he would be most happy to arrange that all possible free time for a thorough discussion of the situation as it will stand then be given to you.
Paris received copy. [Marriner.]
- Telegram in two sections.↩
- On March 19, 1931, Mr. Henderson was selected by the League of Nations Council to be President of the forthcoming General Disarmament Conference.↩
- The German Chancellor, Heinrich Bruening, and the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, Julius Curtius, were in Great Britain June 5–10 and spent the week end with the British Prime Minister at Chequers; see pp. 6–8 and 11–14.↩