638.5131/190

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

No. 58

Sir: I have the honor to inform the Department that in the course of a conversation which the Second Secretary of the Legation31 had recently with M. Pierre de Francqueville, Chargé d’Affaires of France at Port-au-Prince, the latter informed Mr. Finley that M. Adrien de Lens, French Minister here, who is now in France, will return to Haiti about the first of April. At the same time, M. de Francqueville said that, especially if Mr. Léger32 remained in office, M. de Lens was hopeful upon his return that the question of Franco-Haitian commercial relations could be straightened out.

It would first, of course, be necessary to arrive at some conclusion with regard to the 1910 question.33 This M. de Lens had in mind to solve by getting Haiti’s agreement to the imposition in France of a small surtax on imports of Haitian coffee. This surtax would be collected in France, and in the course of ten or fifteen years would satisfactorily pay off the 1910 bondholders. Certain technical difficulties would have to be ironed out, for under French law, as it exists at present, French customs officials have no authority to collect funds for the benefit of private individuals. M. de Francqueville felt, however, that these technical questions could be overcome. He did not state the amount of the surtax that was contemplated.

The size of the proposed surtax in France on Haitian coffee is, of course, determinant in this matter. I understand it is 25 cents per pound. Offhand, it is to be feared that a satisfactory commercial arrangement with Haiti having been obtained, and after Haiti had [Page 603] obtained a reasonable quota for coffee from France, the result might possibly be that a “squeeze play” method would have been inaugurated which could easily result unhappily for Haiti and put her whole coffee export to France on an official “blackmail” basis for the present and future.

That such a scheme is being considered is borne out by a subsequent conversation which I had with M. Léger, the Minister for Foreign Affairs. M. Léger, of his own volition, brought up this subject, confirmed largely what had been told me by M. de Francqueville, and said that he wished to put something before me in a purely personal way. He said Haiti continued to be embarrassed by the reluctance of the Department to contemplate any sort of settlement by his Government of the 1910 question, for they now needed the French coffee market in the worst way. France had shown itself adamant in refusing to grant a coffee quota to Haiti until the 1910 question is settled. Thus the matter was in an impasse. He wondered whether all possible pressure had been brought by the United States to get France to divorce the two questions—not only in principle but in practice. M. Léger said he felt sure that with France in its present financial difficulties a good deal of pressure could be brought by the United States. He said, however, that he did not wish to broach this possibility officially but that he hoped the Department would see and understand the predicament Haiti was in.

I said I would bring this to the Department’s attention in the way it had been presented to me. I feel that whether or not the Department wishes again to enter into this perennial question, the fact that I can tell M. Léger that I have written the Department will please him. Considering this matter from its several angles, the Department may care to take up this subject again with the French Government, not on the basis, suggested by Léger, of trying to make that Government carry out its promise to divorce the 1910 bondholders’ claims from the question of a commercial treaty with France, but rather in order strongly to press the French Government to abandon the pretensions of the 1910 bondholders and all the blackmail tactics and chicanery with which it has been supporting them, and to negotiate a trade convention with the Haitian Government on its own merits. In other words, might it be profitable at this time, in taking up the cudgels for Haiti, to shift the argument more in line with our own interests which might also prove immediately advantageous to Haiti and thus, by direct attack, to seek to lay once and for all the ghost of the French threat against the priority of the 1922 bondholders.34

Respectfully yours,

Ferdinand L. Mayer
  1. Harold D. Finley.
  2. Georges Léger, Haitian Minister for Foreign Affairs and Finance.
  3. French loan of September 5, 1910; for text of contract, see Le Moniteur, Journal Officiel de la République d’Haiti, October 26, 1910.
  4. Loan contract of October 6, 1922, between the Republic of Haiti and the National City Company and the National City Bank, both of New York; for text, see Le Moniteur, Journal Officiel de la République d’Haiti, October 30, 1922; see also Foreign Relations, 1922, vol. ii, pp. 472 ff.