500.A15A4/1032: Telegram
The Ambassador in Great Britain (Mellon) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received May 13—3:05 p.m.]
170. From Gibson. Yesterday afternoon at 4 o’clock the Prime Minister asked us to come and see him in his nursing home. We were the first visitors he had received.
He said that he had been giving much thought to what could be done toward accepting part at least of the program for conversations; that obviously the political upheaval in France rendered the realization of the complete program impracticable for some time to come as he envisaged the possibility of a Left government doomed to early overthrow, and not disposed to tackle any vital question; that it was a pure matter of conjecture but he doubted whether there would be any possibility of settling fundamentals until after the Lausanne Conference. He said that in view of the urgency of the problem he felt the courageous thing on the part of the French Government would be to say that while they could give no guarantees as to ratification of commitments entered into at this time, however they were prepared to go whole-heartedly into discussion of existing problems, and that they bound themselves to use their utmost endeavors—to secure approval for what they agreed to tentatively. He added that he did not believe they had the courage to do this, and that if we found that they were not disposed to enter into discussion of fundamentals the best thing would be to tell them quite frankly that we felt we should be getting on with the work and carry it as fast as possible pending the time when they could come in and make agreement complete, and for that reason we proposed to carry on informal conversations with the Germans, Italians and other interested powers, keeping the French fully informed, in the hope that [Page 126] this might smooth the way when the time arrived for direct Franco German conversations.
The Prime Minister repeated that he felt the best hope for accomplishment lay in our going ahead in full understanding and that he was most appreciative of our having been sent over to confer as to future steps.
He said that he felt the time had come when Great Britain had to take a positive stand as regards reparations, telling both France and Germany what would be a sane settlement; that he felt it imperative that Great Britain should not embarrass the United States; that Great Britain had already made it very clear to the French Government that they would refuse to form part of a united front against the United States on this subject or even join in a united request to us for reexamination of the subject. He felt that the time had passed for allowing the subject of reparations to drift in the hope of Franco-German agreement and that it would probably be necessary for the British Government to lay before the Lausanne Conference its conception of how the reparations question should be settled, and then try to secure action along those lines. [Gibson.]