500.A15A4/1021: Telegram
The Ambassador in Great Britain (Mellon) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received May 10—1:39 p.m.]
165. From Gibson. Davis and I met Mr. Baldwin yesterday at lunch at the Embassy and in the course of conversation impressed upon him our interest in devising some method of carrying out the plan for Franco-German direct conversations under Anglo-American auspices agreed upon at Bessinge. We gave him a rather full picture of the reasons for considering that this constituted the best hope of getting some results from the Conference. While he was obviously not prepared to express himself on the subject he was very receptive to what we had to say.
The conversation then turned to the Far Eastern situation from which it developed that his [opinion?] was that Japan would only be influenced by military force and that England was not prepared to go that far. It was clear that he had not fully grasped our general conception of moral joint pressure as a means of upholding our rights and avoiding the necessity for using military force. After explaining fully our Government’s policy, which he apparently had [Page 118] not understood, he seemed to be impressed and stated categorically that in any event all parties here were in agreement that the United States and England should stand together in dealing with that problem.
At 4 o’clock Davis and I called upon Sir John Simon at the House of Commons at his request. Lord Tyrrell was present and Baldwin came in later.
We told Sir John that we were anxious to ascertain his views as to what could be done to carry out the plan agreed upon at Bessinge for Franco-German conversations. He seemed to think at first that there was not much purpose in going on for the present because of the fact that a complete turn-over in the French Government was imminent and that Tardieu would hardly care to embark upon conversations of this sort while his successor obviously could not be brought in until he had actually taken office and secured a vote of confidence. Tyrrell did not altogether agree and felt that the French might well find some way this week whereby they might join in the conversations as soon as the other parties could be brought to Geneva.
Simon then said that he would like to have a more ample opportunity to talk this matter over with us in the presence of Mr. Baldwin and examine the various questions we should have to face, with a view to determining how far we were in agreement as to methods of approach and solution. Davis and I said that while we should of course be very glad to have this opportunity for an exchange of views we had not come here with the idea of agreeing upon possible solutions for Franco-German problems but only to ascertain the possibility of continuing the conversations already agreed upon. Simon was however insistent that we should both try to jot down ideas as to how the problems to be encountered in the Franco-German conversations could be dealt with. Our attitude was that we felt our greatest usefulness lay in not producing solutions but as acting as a lubricant in the first direct attempt of the French and Germans to work out their problem. We did feel that distinct progress might be made in proceeding along the lines of the discussions which took place at Bessinge.
We are to have another conversation with Baldwin and Simon on Thursday afternoon. Toward the end of the conversation Mr. Baldwin opened up on the subject of disarmament and said he felt very glum about the prospects of achieving results at Geneva but that he was deeply interested, particularly in the question of aviation; that he had gone into the subject pretty thoroughly, and that the more he studied it the more he was convinced that the only course, and one that we should have to adopt ultimately, was to do away [Page 119] with all forms of military aviation on; land and sea, and at the same time abolish all forms of subsidy to civil aviation. He was very much in earnest and said that we should all have to deal with this subject sooner or later and that if we did not deal with it adequately there was serious risk that we should be destroyed by this form of warfare. Simon then said that there was some possibility that later in the conference he would be obliged to outline a program of this sort and propose that a special and separate conference be called for the purpose of dealing with the whole subject of aviation.
Will Department please repeat to the Secretary if considered of sufficient interest. [Gibson.]