500.A15a4/321½
Memorandum by the Secretary of State of a Conversation With the British Prime Minister (MacDonald) at Sciberscross Farmhouse, Scotland, August 7, 1931
In the morning Mr. MacDonald and I continued our talk on disarmament.27 I read him the close of the French memorandum:
“France stands ready to consider all general solutions: universal pledges of mutual assistance, combination of local agreements, constitution of international armed forces, or simultaneous recourse to these several systems. She asks for herself no unilateral guarantee. In contracting defensive agreements over the past ten years, she has assumed, in a spirit of solidarity, and within the scope of Article X of the Covenant, wide responsibilities for the guarantee of international order. But she cannot face alone such a task. Nothing but the cooperation of each and every State in the organization of peace [Page 515] can bring about any real progress towards the limitation and general reduction of armaments.
Conscious of having already accomplished, for their part, since the coming into force of the League Covenant, those reductions of armaments made possible by the improvement of conditions of security in Europe, the Government of the Republic are prepared to extend their unqualified collaboration to any system for the general organization of peace which, involving definite pledges of effective mutual assistance in case of aggression, would enable each State, as soon as the nature and promptness of this assistance has been specified, to determine the further reductions thus rendered possible.”
I pointed out that France took her position flatly on a doctrine of cooperation among the Powers for peace guaranteed by military action against an aggressor; that she was also seeking by this to freeze into permanency the extreme oscillation in her favor and against Germany which had resulted from the last war. Her reference to Article X of the Covenant in the above quoted paragraph showed this. In other words, while she was ready to accept cooperation she wanted this cooperation to secure her hegemony as against Germany. I told him that I thought we had noticed in the London Conference and ever since that British public opinion was swinging away from the French method of securing security in this manner. He agreed thoroughly that it was and we discussed what Britain would do in regard to using her Navy against an aggressor. He said that the critical situation would come up in a case where a nation which was in the wrong on a controversy succeeded in jockeying its antagonist, who was in the right, to put itself tactically in wrong by taking the first hostile step. He said that frankly he was sure the British public would not endorse the use of the British Navy against such an aggressor which was really in the right on the main issue. But in a case where an aggressor was wrong Britain would do her part.
I brought up the question of consultative pacts and recalled to him the succession of steps which the American Delegation had taken at the London Conference. He recollected them perfectly. I asked him whether he had any doubt that in a case where the British Navy was called on by the League of Nations to enforce a blockade there would necessarily be a consultation between any British Government and any American Government prior to British action. He said he had not the slightest doubt there would inevitably be such consultation and he did not see how a consultative pact would add anything to security in that case. On my part I said that in the light of what he had said about future British action, that I could not believe that any American Government would seek to use our Navy to enforce an extreme doctrine of neutrality under which American merchants were seeking to trade with an aggressor nation so declared by the League and against whom [Page 516] Britain and British public opinion were sanctioning the use of the British Navy.
I asked him the direct question of what he proposed to do in the face of the issue presented by France’s insistence upon the Versailles Treaty and Germany’s rising opinion against the servitude which that treaty imposed. He said frankly that he thought the treaty must be amended eventually; that Germany in that respect was right, but he said he had already notified Bruening that Britain would not stand for an amendment of that treaty by force. He then pointed out the series of steps which he thought could be taken and which he was already beginning to take.
First, he felt it was most important to free France from her fear of isolation and to get better relations between both Britain and France and Germany and France, and he mentioned as hopeful steps already taken the rapprochement between the three countries at the recent Seven-Power Conference in London. Also, in the same way he mentioned the efforts which were being made for Franco-Italian settlement of outstanding troubles.
Then he thought the second step was to get the Versailles Treaty up for discussion. As above stated, he thought any attempt to adjust it by war was equivalent to a blow at the peace of Europe and he had told Germany that Britain would not stand for that. On the other hand he was prepared to say to France that the Versailles Treaty was not to be taken as “eternal gospel” and what he proposed to do was to ask Germany in effect to point out the features in respect to which she believes the Versailles Treaty is “an act of violence”.
He recalled the fact that prior to Locarno and as a means of securing French agreement to Locarno, Germany had made a declaration that she would not seek to upset the Alsace-Lorraine settlement or the Rhine settlement. This was the way in which Locarno was brought up, viz. by Germany’s formal acceptance of the status quo in regard to those great historic issues. But MacDonald said he would not support any French demand for fidelity to the treaty which would require a preliminary declaration by Germany (similar to that made in respect to Locarno) in regard to Poland or the situation in the East. He here told the story of a bishop who had sought to get a pension on his retirement sufficient to nourish in luxury a large family of blackguard sons, and he said that his attitude towards the treaty did not mean that he would support France’s demand for the perpetuation of all of the iniquities which were done by her little allies.
In the third place he told me that he was expecting to get this declaration by Germany as to the points in her indictment against the treaty opened and discussed in a friendly manner on these successive visits which were now taking place between Germany and France and Italy. [Page 517] He himself had proposed Bruening’s visits to Paris and Rome for that purpose and he had evidently discussed this program with Bruening in reference to those visits. He told me how the British Foreign Office had opposed the Bruening visit to Chequers and how frightened they had been lest it would make trouble with France, giving me some amusing details of his talks with them. Later in the day he promised to keep me posted as to what came out of these visits and what came out of this program which was the most important part of our discussion.
I then took up with him the British resolution on disarmament passed by the committee on Imperial Defense, and we went over it paragraph by paragraph, he telling me the history of each paragraph, and I jotting down notes in the margin which shows what he said. Before he left the following morning he asked me whether he could communicate to me informally, and not for record on the files of the Department, the future observations which he might have in regard to the estimate by the British Treasury of the situation which will exist at the close of the Hoover moratorium. He said that they had already made up a statement for him but he was not satisfied with it and he had sent it back yesterday, but he is going to let me know later. I told him that I would be glad to receive from him in that personal way any such memoranda and I should be very glad if he would keep me posted in exactly similar fashion of the steps which he was taking in regard to the general situation in Europe which we had discussed as above set forth. He said he would be very glad to do so. I told him that I assumed, of course, I could show these to the President and he said of course he assumed everything he sent me would go to the President, but he only asked that they be not made a part of the regular files of the Department.
- No record of previous conversation found in Department files.↩