462.00R296/4113: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Edge) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 25—9:57 p.m.]
357. Your telegram numbered 273, June 24, 3 p.m. The President of the Council wished to consider the answer to your question himself and consulted with the Minister of Finance and Minister of Foreign Affairs this afternoon. The Foreign Office has just given us the following answer: [Page 71]
“The continued payments by the Reich would be made to the Bank of International Settlement, as under the present arrangement, on the 15th of each month, by twelfths, in currency other than reichsmarks.
According to the understanding of the French the creditor powers, who by the terms of the Hague Agreements66 are beneficiaries of the allocations from the unconditional annuities, would immediately be credited with the amount of these sums, but the corresponding accounts would be blocked until the end of the period of suspension, each power thus retaining its rights inviolate, but suspending the exercise thereof. On the other hand, the Bank of International Settlement would have the privilege of using immediately the currency received, in practice on the very day of its receipt, for the credit operations that are considered necessary.
By asking that the corresponding currency should again be made available upon the expiration of the period of suspension, the French Government does not conceal from itself in any way that there can be certain practical difficulties of application; but in its opinion these difficulties would not seem to be unsurmountable, and, moreover, President Hoover’s proposition itself, from a practical point of view, contains certain unknown factors at the time of putting the agreements again into force at the expiration of the period of suspension.”
- Great Britain, Cmd. 3484, Miscellaneous No. 4 (1930): Agreements Concluded at the Hague Conference, January 1930.↩