711.00 Statement July 16, 1937/126
The Chargé in Switzerland (Bigelow) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 7.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to my telegram No. 72 of July 29, 5 p.m.,57 reporting the essence of Mr. Motta’s comment on your statement in Radio Bulletin No. 164 of July 16.
The text of his remarks, setting forth the views of the Swiss Government in regard to the statement in question, is contained in the enclosed [Page 728] copy of an Aide-Mémoire. This paper was handed to me by the President of the Confederation at the close of our conversation on July 29.
As mentioned in my telegram No. 72 of July 29, Mr. Motta had sent word asking me to call on him this morning. He told me that he had referred your statement to the Federal Council and that the latter had authorized him to say that it is able to subscribe on all points to the principles set forth therein. These, he said, are at the root of Switzerland’s foreign relationships, “their practical application being predicated on the fact that the foreign policy of Switzerland is based on perpetual neutrality and on efforts to set up reciprocally friendly international relations, regardless of the political regimes of the States with which it is in contact”. He went on to say that “joining the League and signing the Kellogg Pact showed that Switzerland was ready to contribute towards international collaboration as tending to bring about a general application of the principles in question. Switzerland can so contribute within the limit of her neutrality, this being same condition under which Switzerland can acquiesce in the program enunciated by Mr. Hull.”
Mr. Motta made no comment on economic policy as such and I took the occasion to present the Department’s views along the lines set forth in the circular instruction of July 658 regarding the international economic program of the United States, adding that I ventured to hope that Switzerland could contribute more to the widening of a circle of lowered trade restrictions. I commented on Switzerland’s maintenance of the quota system as being intrinsically discriminatory. Mr. Motta agreed that such was a fact but he thought that by the liberal manner in which the system is now being applied its restrictive and discriminatory features were now almost done away with.
He expressed admiration for the trade policy of the United States, which had been of benefit to Switzerland, and commented on the fact that although the world political situation is acute, the peoples were beginning to feel more cheerful under better economic conditions and were becoming more peaceful-minded—less critical of their own governments and others. He was happy, he said, that the institutions and the views of the citizens in Switzerland and the United States were in so many ways identical, and he added that on August 1, on the occasion of the Swiss National Holiday, he would broadcast a friendly message to the United States, and that on the same day he would deliver an address in the Italian-speaking Canton of the Tessin which would, in a way, be a restatement of Swiss national policy.
He then spoke of Mussolini’s recent indictment in the Italian press of so-called “fictions”. He criticized the practice of diplomacy by [Page 729] such ostensibly anonymous press articles but considered that there was much truth and force in what Mussolini said. The League of Nations, Mr. Motta thought, must be realistic and, speaking for his country, he could say that Switzerland would never again participate in sanctions which could only aggravate the original difficulty. Switzerland could reconcile her membership in the League with her policy of absolute neutrality, and it was a pity that Geneva insisted on preserving a fictitious position which was one reason, he believed, preventing membership in the League from being universal and why the United States felt that it could not join that organization.
Mr. Motta then spoke of other matters concerning which there is no need to report. After I had thanked him for his statement in reply to your message in the circular telegram of July 17, 2 p.m., he said that he had been especially glad to make such a statement because of his respect for Mr. Hull and the President. He supposed that it would not be published in isolated form, although there was certainly nothing contained in it which needed to be concealed.
I might add that Mr. Walter Stucki, Delegate of the Swiss Federal Council for Foreign Trade, has been absent from Bern and was not consulted in regard to the drafting of the statement in the Aide-Mémoire, which is enclosed herewith.
Respectfully yours,