638.5131/137: Telegram

The Minister in Haiti ( Gordon ) to the Secretary of State

6. Department’s telegraphic instruction 24, October 28, 7 p.m.55 The Foreign Minister56 told me this morning that negotiations for a renewal of the Franco-Haitian commercial treaty have now reached a more active and concrete stage.

Although the French Government has not officially stated that it would disjoin the 1910 loan question from treaty negotiations, the fact remains that last autumn the French Government declared in an official note that it would not resume negotiations for the conclusion of the commercial treaty unless and until the Haitian Government agreed to submit the 1910 claim to judicial or arbitral decision and that now, without anything whatever being said concerning a settlement of the 1910 loan claim, treaty negotiations are actively proceeding.

Amplifying despatch by airmail.

Gordon