800.51W89 France/785: Telegram

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

745. M. Paul-Boncour, Minister for Foreign Affairs, called at the Chancery this afternoon having made no previous engagement and for half an hour discussed the war debt situation. Marriner was present. I am giving below comprehensive report of the conversation.

Boncour said that he had come to pay the very first call to me on taking over his duties as Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs; that he wished to show his desire to find a solution of the present difficulties.

I replied that I was extremely pleased to receive him as he was not a stranger to me either in person or in accomplishment.

Boncour said that he would gladly take this occasion to discuss the difficulties now facing our two countries. His desire was to find a solution to them and he had made this abundantly clear in his declaration to the Chambers yesterday.

I said that I was equally anxious to find some means of doing so and that the first necessity to obtain this result would be for France to pay the installment due December 15th in order to be in the same position vis-à-vis the United States as the other debtor nations, notably England.

Boncour then said that he was of course faced with the situation that the Parliament by a very large majority had refused to make this payment and that what he sought was some new fact with which to return to it for the authorization for the immediate payment. He said that he did not wish it to be forgotten that the Parliament never in any way denied the validity of the debt, that they merely withheld payment until they could know the intentions of the United States with respect to the whole problem of international debts which had been raised in the beginning by the Hoover moratorium, and subsequently by the Lausanne Conference.

I inquired whether he had any suggestions as to the type of new fact that might be useful.

[Page 750]

Boncour felt that for the moment there was no need of attempting to define this as Parliament would recess within a few days for the Christmas holidays and during that time he hoped, in conjunction with me, to explore this field, as time would be of some help in the problem. Boncour said that he had felt that the suggestions contained in President Hoover’s declaration had contained a step in the direction of the Chambers’ resolution, which, if it had gone through, might have given him the new facts necessary to ask a change in the decision of the Chambers but that in accordance with the news in the morning’s papers and information from Ambassador Claudel, President-elect Roosevelt had refused his support, or that of his incoming Government, to any project of this nature and therefore this possibility was killed for the time being. Therefore, he was considerably at a loss to know what to do.

I then said that there was, however, one point on which there could be no question, which was the sentiment of the two parties, of the Administration and of the American Congress:

1.
That there would be no way of conferring with nations who had not paid their December 15 installment, and,
2.
That there would be no general conference confined to this subject.

Boncour then outlined what he felt was the sense of the Chamber without giving the idea that he necessarily agreed with it. He said that the Chamber felt that the moratorium had treated all international debts together; that the Lausanne Conference had attempted to treat the question without the United States and the present difficulty was an instance of the mistake that these had been; that therefore the general problem needed to be treated in a general conference not from the point of view of the united front against America which was to be sure the most general creditor but that France, England and the others were also creditors in different ways and in some ways shared that aspect of the problem.

I asked whether it was his idea that an international conference should be called to discuss the debt installment of France due on December 15 last and Boncour replied no, but that what he needed was some definite assurance of the intentions of the United States in this matter to give to the Chambers to induce them to change.

I then said one thought had occurred to me which was an entirely personal one, namely, whether declarations in the United States Senate by the Democratic and Republican heads on the interested committees, namely, Foreign Affairs and Finance, to the effect that America would give every debtor the right to be heard and to present [Page 751] his case with respect to debts would be sufficient, that after all was said and done Congress had the final power.

Boncour said that he felt that this would be advantageous but that he did not think it would be sufficient at this time to be considered the new fact on which he could ask for Parliamentary reconsideration.

I then reiterated very emphatically my feeling that the first necessity, for France to enter into negotiations or discussions on the same plane as the others, was the payment of this installment; if the matter dragged until the new administration this would mean that the problem would come very close to the June 15 payment and the uncertainties would continue.

Boncour concluded the conversation by stating that he certainly understood this point of view and that he would do his best to overcome the difficulties, which were very great, since he felt that opinion in the Chamber had been even more pronounced than the vote, since many of the Deputies who voted for the payment were expressing their confidence in Herriot and had the question been put without a vote of confidence would have voted still more vigorously against payment.

Boncour said that he was altogether at my disposal on this matter at any time and that during the course of the Parliamentary vacation he hoped some progress might be made to obtain some measure that would serve as a turning point for Parliamentary opinion.

My own reaction to the interview is that if you can devise any plan which would help Boncour to make a new presentation to the Chamber even in the form of a conciliatory note which in no way would commit the United States Government beyond what it has already signified it would certainly be most helpful at this stage.

Of course I must return this call in the near future and I would like some expression from the Department in the meantime.

Edge
  1. Telegram in nine sections.