462.00R296/5527: Circular telegram

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

Repeat to diplomatic missions in Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Rumania and Yugoslavia.

Please address to the government to which you are accredited an appropriate communication stating (mutatis mutandis):

“Public Resolution No. 5, 72d Congress, approved December 23, 1931,1 authorized the Secretary of the Treasury, with the approval of the President to conclude under certain conditions an agreement with the (Government of France) providing for the postponement of payments due during the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1931, under the debt funding agreement between (France) and the United States, and for their repayment over a period of 10 years beginning July 1, 1933, with interest at the rate of 4 per cent per annum. The Secretary of the Treasury is now prepared to proceed with negotiations with a view to concluding the agreements authorized by the Resolution, and has asked that a representative be designated by the (Government of France) and duly authorized to confer with him at Washington for this purpose.”

The presentation of this communication at this time is merely the carrying out of the technical requirements of the moratorium agreements reached last June,2 and has no further significance as regards American policy in the field of international debts. It is possible that the presentation of these notes may stir up speculation and comment. You may therefore in informal fashion make the preceding clear to the (French Government), while avoiding entering into any discussion of our debt policy.

Stimson