800.51W89 Great Britain/472
Memorandum by the Secretary of State
The British Ambassador called and desired to know just what the significance was of certain conversations that had been going on about the debt situation. I frankly stated to him that since the applications of debtor governments for review of their debts should be considered separately from the subjects to be considered by the World Economic Conference, I myself had given all of my attention to the preparations for the World Conference and that so far as I was aware any conversations relative to debts had been conducted by the President and Assistant Secretary Moley, or both. He then inquired whether the state of those debt conversations was awaiting a reply of any kind from the British Government. I replied that I was entirely uninformed as to this but if he so desired I would ascertain the facts and notify him. This he requested that I do.
He was rather impatient in his reference to what he considered the failure of our government to do any educational work in or out of Congress in the direction of liberalizing the debt situation. I replied that I was even more discouraged at the seeming indifference of the British and French especially towards the big fundamental factors to be dealt with by the World Conference for the purpose of world business recovery.