500.C111/909
The Secretary of State to the French Minister of Commerce and Industry (Bonnet)
Dear Mr. Minister of Commerce and Industry: It is with deep pleasure that I have received your message of October 5, 1935, transmitted to me by His Excellency Mr. André de Laboulaye on his return to his post in Washington.
The substantial identity of the views of our two Governments is revealed in the recommendations advanced by France before the Second Committee of the League of Nations and in the repeated utterances of my Government, as to the need for liberalization of trade régimes throughout the world and as to the methods by which this objective can most practicably be achieved. This unanimity of principles augurs well for the speedy and successful conclusion of the Franco-American trade agreement. I sincerely trust that through the welcome collaboration which you offer in this connection, we may provide a powerful stimulus to the wider application of the principles adopted by the Second Committee and the League Assembly and thus to the return to economic sanity in international relations.
I believe that, in the absence of untoward political developments, there has been no time in recent years when the prospects for progress in this direction have been so bright as at the present. This belief is strengthened by messages, similar in tenor to your own, which I have received from other officials of the League and of the Second Committee.
Accept [etc.]