800.51W89 France/909

Memorandum by the Acting Secretary of State

At the request of the President, I called upon the French Ambassador yesterday afternoon and told him to set his mind at rest regarding the reports appearing in to-day’s and yesterday’s press to the effect that the President was considering some new movement on the debt question. Mr. de Laboulaye had previously told me that such reports had reached his government, which had caused a certain amount of bewilderment and uncertainty as to whether the next move was to be made by the French or American governments. I explained to de Laboulaye that the President did not regard France as in the same category as England, since the latter had made the December payments. If France should now make her December payments, the President would be only too happy to regard France in the same category as England. I said that M. Herriot’s speech of two days ago expressed directly the President’s viewpoint. As he knew, our position with regard to the British is that, if the British desire to make some concrete proposition regarding the June payments, it would be received with careful consideration.

William Phillips