838.51/3654a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Haiti (Mayer)
60. Please call on the Minister for Foreign Affairs and say that from the text of the Franco-Haitian commercial convention as published in the French Journal Officiel of June 26, a copy of which was sent you by air mail letter, it is clear that the financial clauses relating to the 1910 loan contrary to our expectations are embodied in a Protocole de Signature forming apparently an annexed document to the convention if not in fact an integral part thereof.
You should inform Leger that this Government has naturally been disappointed that despite assurances to the contrary, mention has been made of the 1910 loan claims in the Protocole de Signature and that this Government has been somewhat disturbed at the situation thus brought about, particularly since the financial clauses referred to stipulate the transfer to a bank in France where they apparently are subject to French jurisdiction of funds which this Government and the Haitian Government have always considered formed a just and full tender of settlement to the outstanding holders of the 1910 bonds. You may add in this connection that irrespective of the implied renunciation of this principle that the original tender was a just one, this Government notes that the new convention does not appear to contain any guarantees either to the effect that the funds to be transferred will not be impounded or even that the payment of 500 francs per bond plus the scrip for 26 dollars will constitute a definite and final settlement of the claims of the 1910 bondholders.
Furthermore, you may wish to call attention to the possible impairment by the operation envisaged of the position occupied by the 1922 loans whose issuance was originally made contingent on assurances [Page 616] that full and equitable tender of settlement had been made for the outstanding bonds of the 1910 loan.
You may say in conclusion that this Government will be pleased to receive at an early date an indication from the Haitian Government as to the policy it intends to pursue with respect to the above observations.