882.01 Foreign Control/243: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Consul at Geneva (Gilbert)
77. [For Reber.] Your telegram No. 175 seems to cover the situation both as to the Liberian memorandum and to the problem in general. However, we specifically desire to emphasize the absolute necessity, if we are to vote in favor of any compromise plan developed, of having the question of authority immediately and properly defined. With the experiences of the past 20 years with “adviserships” we could not support any proposal which did not give adequate authority. We feel that arguments about “sovereignty” and “the constitution” should not be permitted to obscure either this basic necessity or the present intolerable chaos prevailing in Liberian administration. Furthermore you may point out that the purpose of Liberian rehabilitation to be achieved via a period of assistance is fundamentally to provide for the benefit of the Liberian people precisely that independence about which the Liberian representatives profess to show such solicitude.
Carrying these premises to the outline described in your telegram No. 177, we believe that it would be most unfortunate for the International Committee to be faced with another detailed “plan” without first having settled the vital principle of authority. If Liberia is going to refuse to delegate adequate powers it would be much better in our view for this to be ascertained in the beginning, without wasting time negotiating details, even if Liberia’s refusal deadlocks proceedings and causes the Committee to report no progress to the Council. A recognition of no progress now would be preferable to adoption by the Committee of an unworkable program whose shortcomings would be discovered 6 months or a year later when initial apparent acquiescence might have changed in Monrovia to opposition comparable to that which has faced the present Financial Advisership [Page 724] during the past 2 years. Nor would we be impressed with a proposal to base the functioning of any program upon a “promise of cooperation” with suspension of the operation of the plan and/or the proposed moratorium, in the event that cooperation should not be forthcoming.
The foregoing represents the requirement which would have to be met to secure the support of the Department. Although it has not been possible to date directly to discuss the matter with the Firestones, Howe is of the opinion that they would require similar clarification of the principle of authority before agreeing to consider details. Should the principle be settled, he believes they would not insist upon the details of draft plan outlined to you last January37 but on the contrary would be sympathetic to any proposal conceived in a spirit of “the realities of the situation.”
Aside from the question of authority, the Department is gratified to observe the effort to reduce the personnel and more especially the cost of a program, since $400,000 a year would clearly represent an impossible initial burden for a country whose present revenues (due in considerable measure to chaos and administrative ineptitude to be sure) are only approximately half a million dollars. We would therefore like to see considered a further large reduction from the $200,000 a year program discussed in your telegram No. 177, on the theory that a start could be made (and much progress could be achieved provided Liberia cooperated) with a much more modest organization. Given the present Financial Advisership plus one thoroughly competent general administrator with adequate authority, we believe that improvement would be rapid and that the organization could gradually be enlarged on a self-supporting basis. A further advantage of this proposal would be that it might entail almost no modification of the loan contract,—probably none if the League would itself defray the expenses of the first year.