550.S1 Monetary Stabilization/1
The French Embassy to the Department of State 24
On several occasions the French Government had the opportunity to express its views on the importance which it attaches to the success of the World Economic Conference and those views were reflected in the conversations which Mr. Herriot and the French experts had with the President, the Secretary of State and the American experts. One [Page 609] of the main questions which, in the opinion of the French Government ought to be settled without delay is the whole monetary problem.
The proposals made by the American experts during the Washington conversations in view of establishing a tripartite monetary cooperation have been examined in Paris with great interest.
As Mr. Herriot and Mr. Rist pointed out in their conversations, the French Government is firmly convinced that the work of the Conference greatly depends upon what will be done in order to remove the uncertainty which exists today as to the future of two currencies as important as the Pound and the Dollar. It is very much concerned in the matter and believes that in order to enable the Conference to arrive, in the course of its first meetings, at the establishment of sufficient assurance concerning the indispensable stabilization of the Pound and the Dollar, conversations should start immediately between the American, British and French Governments, and the American, British and French Central Banks, in order to discuss the above mentioned monetary cooperation.
The French Government and the Bank of France are ready to enter into these discussions and the British Government has been notified of that intention.
- An attached memorandum of May 16, 1933, by the Secretary of State referred to this document as “purely unofficial.”↩