462.00R296/4166: Telegram

The Ambassador in France (Edge) to the Acting Secretary of State

361. After a session in the Chamber of Deputies beginning at 3 p.m. yesterday and ending at 6:30 this morning the Government obtained a vote of confidence the result being 386 to 189. The vote was not split on party lines as the Socialists voted for the Government, the opposition consisting of a portion of the Radical Socialists and extreme Conservatives.

Several orators attacked President Hoover on account of having made his proposal without consulting the French Government. The Prime Minister, however, forcefully defended the United States, claiming the latter had acted absolutely correctly and that the American Ambassador had given him absolute assurance that the French Government was the first outside Government advised. The Prime Minister urged that nothing be said in the Chamber of Deputies to offend American susceptibilities and make more difficult the delicate negotiations which were beginning.

The Minister of Finance in an able [garbled] of the Government’s position stated that under President Hoover’s proposal France would [Page 83] be better off than under German moratorium. Furthermore, he stated under a German moratorium France would have no guaranty that Germany would not use the funds thus saved for armaments, but under the French counterproposal adequate guarantees would be secured. He warned the Chamber that the German economic and financial situation is graver than the Deputies realized and that latter must choose between German moratorium or the Hoover proposal with proper reservations to preserve integrity of Young Plan.

While none of the eleven interpolators advocated unconditional acceptance of President Hoover’s proposal neither did any orator advocate unconditional refusal of that proposal.

The motion finally adopted by the Chamber reads as follows:

“The Chamber, approving the reply of the French Government to the proposition of the President of the United States, counts on the Government to assure simultaneously the intangibility of the unconditional annuities accepted at The Hague by the powers signing the Young Plan and the necessities of a policy of peace and economic cooperation and refusing any additions, passes to the order of the day”.

Edge