882.01 Foreign Control/438: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Minister in Liberia (Mitchell)
76. We have received from the Finance Corporation of America the full text of the bill or Joint Resolution referred to in your telegram No. 109, December 16, 4 p.m.
You are instructed to obtain an immediate interview with Barclay and to inform him orally, making it clear that you are speaking with the full authority of your Government, that the American Government cannot admit the right of Liberia to repudiate by unilateral action its contractual obligations, a measure which could not be taken by any civilized government.
The action of the Legislature was taken on almost the same day on which, in response to a Liberian request for financial assistance, a representative of Finance Corporation of America reached Monrovia with a view to discussing this assistance, as well as its relationship to the program of the International Committee of the League of Nations. If this bill should become effective it would be construed by the American Government not only as an attempt to repudiate a [Page 787] legitimate contract, but also to nullify Liberia’s engagements made in Geneva.
Finance Corporation states that if this measure is enacted it will have no other course than to withdraw its representative from Monrovia at once. With this view the American Government entirely concurs. You should make it plain to Barclay that in these circumstances we should inform the League that Liberia’s action would effectively block any further participation by this Government in international efforts to rehabilitate the country. Moreover, the American Government would be prepared to make representations against the extension of financial assistance to Liberia from whatever source, unless and until the prior rights of Finance Corporation of America had either been met in full or the contract had been modified on a basis of mutual consent.