838.51/3384
Memorandum From the Haitian Legation Embodying the Text of a Note From the Haitian Minister for Foreign Affairs to the Haitian Legation in the United States, May 12, 1937
- 1.
- The Government is disposed to accept any reasonable plan and give every guarantee to the holders of the loan of 1922. It deems that the projects it had submitted granted ample protection to the said holders and it is disposed to study any method which might give the American Government the satisfaction that it might consider necessary.
- 2.
- The Haitian Government does not believe that it would be good policy to agree to transfer, as the American Government desires, the Office of the Fiscal Representative to the National Bank of the Republic of Haiti. In the first place such a transfer would disorganize in part the Haitian Financial Administration and would oblige the Government, after the eventual repayment of the 1922 loan, to undertake a new reorganization of the said services. Moreover, Haitian public opinion, which has always understood that the Haitian Government [Page 537] had made the purchase of the National Bank of the Republic of Haiti for the purpose of terminating the control of the Office of the Fiscal Representative, would not understand why the operation simply resulted in transferring the said Office as it is now organized and with almost the same powers to the National Bank of the Republic of Haiti.
The Haitian Government is of the opinion that the Office of the Fiscal Representative should be Haitianized and should be kept as a permanent part of the Haitian financial organization. It thinks that, furthermore, in order to give satisfaction to the American Government and the holders of 1922, an additional Service of Control should be organized in the National Bank of the Republic of Haiti, which Service would be scheduled for elimination as soon as the 1922 loan was repaid.
Such is the fundamental opinion of the Haitian Government, which opinion has been set forth and developed at length.