882.01 Foreign Control/422: Telegram
The Consul at Geneva (Gilbert) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 11—2:15 p.m.]
321. From Reber. Department’s 172, November 10, 6 [5] p.m.88 Prior to informing the members of the Liberian Committee on the contents of the Finance Corporation’s letter I venture to submit the following considerations as to its possible repercussions here.
As the Department is aware it was the expressed unanimous desire of the Committee that the financial negotiations should begin as soon as possible and after having received the Department’s telegram No. 157, October 11, 4 p.m., I explained that the Finance Corporation’s representative expected to be present in Geneva during the month of November. It has been possible in a measure to check the spread of propaganda adverse to the American interests by pointing out that the delay specified was relatively short and that the subject had been placed on the agenda of the extraordinary session of the Council to be held in November. In the same manner it was possible to prevent the insertion in the report of expressed censure over this delay.
[Page 778]With the understanding that a representative of the Finance Corporation would probably be in Geneva in mid-November, the Liberian representative has remained in Europe.
Furthermore, the Committee remembers that in January the representatives of the Finance Corporation and the Firestone Company had stated that they would be prepared upon certain conditions to examine proposals carefully and in a sympathetic spirit.89 I therefore believe that an expressed evidence of their willingness to enter promptly into negotiations here, which need not commit them to definite acceptance of the plan, will go far towards dispelling a general impression that the American groups are not prepared to accept any form of international supervision as a basis for amending their contracts and are endeavoring to block successful application of the only international scheme of assistance which it has been possible to evolve. This impression has been gaining ground and will be difficult if not impossible to contradict in other ways.
In view of the delay now proposed it will be impossible for the Council to take any action on the report prior to its May session. During this period it cannot now be forecast what decisions may be reached by this body, since it may feel, after having understood that the negotiations would begin in November, that the delay is too great to make it possible to await the results of the investigation on the spot. In addition to raising charges of bad faith on the part of the company this may result in a recommendation to abandon the idea upon the grounds that it was impossible to obtain financial assistance from the Firestones in time to be of any value or to seek financial aid elsewhere. It will also be recalled that the truces established by Dr. Mackenzie, whose mission was in part inspired by American insistence upon the urgency of improving the conditions existing on the Kru Coast and elsewhere in Liberia, will have expired by that time and that there will have been manifested in Liberia no definite proof of progress.
I am obliged to bring these considerations to the attention of the Department although I fully realize that the latter is undoubtedly aware of the danger inherent in this latest proposal of the American companies.
Unless I am instructed to the contrary I shall, however, inform the members of the Committee of this decision early next week without comment as to the American Government’s views in this regard. [Reber.]