550.S1 Washington/535
Joint Statement by President Roosevelt and the Italian Minister of Finance (Jung)87
At the close of our conversations88 we note with profound satisfaction the close similarity of our views on the questions which are harassing the world today. The world faces a crisis of the first magnitude. If normal life is to be resumed, the World Economic Conference must be made a success. It must not only meet soon, but come to its conclusions quickly. The task is so complex and difficult that unless it is approached by all nations with the fullest and sincerest desire to arrive at a result, the Conference cannot succeed. But the other course before the world is clearly an increase in economic warfare and all nations must cooperate in attempting to avoid this alternative.
We agree that political tranquillity is essential for economic stability; that economic disarmament can take place only in a world in which military disarmament is possible.
A truce in the field of tariffs and other obstacles to international trade is essential if the Conference is to undertake its labors with any hope of success. We are in agreement that a fixed measure of exchange values must be reestablished in the world and we believe that this measure must be gold.
The entire problem of raising world prices and restoring the opportunity to work to the men and women who today wish to work and can find no employment is a unit. It must be attacked as a unit. Along with the measures which must be taken to restore normal conditions in the financial and monetary field, and stability in international exchanges, must go hand in hand measures for removing the obstacles to the flow of international commerce.
In the period immediately before us, governments must employ such means as are at their disposal to relieve the unemployed by public works, and these efforts of individual governments will achieve their fullest effect if they can be made a part of a synchronized international program. Similarly, the central banks of the various nations should by concerted action attempt to provide such adequate expansion of credit as may be necessary to support constructive work, avoiding as much as possible the use of credit for illegitimate speculative purposes.
We have found ourselves in the closest agreement on many other measures to reestablish the economic life of the world and we are both [Page 505] determined to approach the problems of the World Economic Conference with the firmest resolve to bring its labors to success.
- Issued by the White House as a press release, May 6, 1933; reprinted from Department of State, Press Releases, May 13, 1933, p. 328.↩
- Conversations between American and Italian representatives were held at the Department of State on May 4; see Department of State, Press Releases, May 6, 1933, p. 306.↩