Joint Statement by President Roosevelt and the French Representative (Herriot)78
The President has discussed with M. Herriot the problem of intergovernmental debts. The President has set forth the entire situation from the American point of view and M. Herriot has explained how [Page 500] the problem appears to the French Government and Parliament. This long exchange of views, which was of the most frank and friendly character, was for the purpose of reaching a clearer understanding of the realities of the situation and will undoubtedly help in determining the steps to be taken hereafter.
It is the hope of the President and of M. Herriot that these conversations, which have proved to be of value, may be continued in Paris and in Washington after M. Herriot has had an opportunity to report to the French Government.
Our conversations had as their object and as their result as complete an understanding as possible between our two countries in regard to our common problems, the conclusion of definite agreements being reserved for the World Economic Conference.
At no moment has understanding been more necessary between France and the United States for the maintenance of peace, for progressive and simultaneous economic disarmament and the restoration of stable monetary conditions in an atmosphere of general security. We have noted with deep satisfaction that our two Governments are looking with like purpose at the main problems of the world and the objectives of the World Economic Conference. The Government of the United States and the French Government have been able already to announce their full agreement in regard to the necessity of a prompt meeting of this Conference, the object of which must be to bring about a rapid revival of world activity and the raising of world prices by diminishing all sorts of impediments to international commerce such as tariffs, quotas and exchange restrictions, and by the reestablishment of a normal financial and monetary situation.
We have examined in particular the manner in which commercial policies should develop for the purpose of promoting rather than restricting international trade. We have studied monetary problems and the different methods possible for a coordination of central bank policy; the remedies which may be brought forward to attack the menacing problem of unemployment and the stagnation of business by the execution of programs of public works to be carried out by the different governments by such methods as are within their means; the effects of the depression on silver and the different methods proposed to improve its status.
The questions which are before the world today are for the most part, in our opinion, intimately bound up with one another. They constitute the separate elements of a single problem, the sound and permanent solution of which should be sought in an international [Page 501] collaboration supplementing the indispensable domestic efforts of each country.
The world-wide suffering of millions of unemployed demands without delay that this collaboration, which has been so happily begun here, should be continued. In conclusion, our free and cordial exchange of views has led us together to record the will of our two countries to continue this collaboration and to seek to extend it to all other nations in order to assure to the peoples of the world the opportunity to labor under conditions of real peace.
- Issued by the White House as a press release, April 28, 1933; reprinted from Department of State, Press Releases, April 29, 1933, p. 276.↩