781.003/246: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom ( Kennedy ) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 8—2:25 p.m.]
957. Your 511 July 7, 8 p.m. discussed informally this morning with an official of the office who participated in negotiations of the French treaty regarding Morocco. He said that so far as he could recall the question of exchange control did not at any time enter into the negotiations of the treaty. He is looking into the question of monopolies and will give a reply early next week.
Letter of May 22, 1939 from the Chief of the Near Eastern Division to the Counselor of the Embassy. Delay in exchange of the ratifications of the Anglo-French treaty of July 18, 1938 is said not to be due to any desire of the British to defer putting the treaty into effect until comparable arrangements have been made by France with those countries which possess treaty rights in French Morocco that will be infringed by the introduction of quotas or the raising of Moroccan duties. The delay is due to the desire of the British to perfect the necessary exchanges with the Dominions Governments in regard to Morocco before putting the treaty into effect. With regard to the question as to whether France is under the necessity of obtaining the assent of all the parties signatory to the Act of Algeciras, precedent to the exercise by French Morocco of customs autonomy, the British view is that once the Anglo-French treaty is effective its exception is a purely French obligation.