500.A15A5/667: Telegram
The Chairman of the American Delegation (Davis) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 19—4:20 p.m.]
99. Corbin, who returned from Paris last night, came to see me this afternoon. He first told me he did not know until afterwards that his Government had communicated directly to de Laboulaye about the battleship and he was sorry it had gotten into the press which they had expected to avoid. I told him I was glad in a way to have them find out direct if they wished that the position taken here had been in conformity with your views but I felt it was rather unusual for Monsieur Pietri not to have come here first to discuss these questions directly at the Conference which had been called for dealing with such matters at least before making an appeal direct to Washington. Aside from the question of procedure, however, I particularly deplored the fact that the Havas Agency had learned about it and published a dispatch with the result that our newspapermen here were today all excited about it but that I had endeavored to make little of it.
Corbin said that while he could not say his trip to Paris had been a success he felt that he had made headway in getting his Government to realize the importance of reaching a naval agreement and the bad effect which would result from a failure to do so. His Government, while now recognizing this, is considering ways and means or conditions upon which Germany might be brought into the agreement or how best to explain to the French people the reasons for making an agreement with Germany on naval questions without getting an agreement on other matters of concern to them. He said that although they did not want to inject us into any extraneous arrangements which he knew would be objectionable he wondered if it would not be possible to make their ultimate ratification of the naval agreement conditional upon a prior settlement of other matters.
I told him I felt this would be particularly objectionable to us and that it would be difficult for us to justify entering a naval agreement that was conditional upon some European settlements even though we should in no way be a party to such agreements. I told him that aside from our own position with regard to this it seemed to me that from their own standpoint it would be advisable and more practicable to make clean-cut naval agreement and to have Germany made a party to it hoping that this would help create a better atmosphere whereby they might later take up other matters which they wished to get settled with Germany.
[Page 64]Corbin said he personally felt that there was much to be said for this. He will talk with Eden in a day or so as soon as he hears further from his Government and that while there might be a few days’ delay he was hopeful that they would find a satisfactory way of working out a solution and agreement.