838.51/8–2544: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Haiti ( Wilson )
371. Department’s 347, September 7, 7 p.m.37 The Haitian Ambassador called September 19 and left a note proposing a total payment of $500,000 amortization on the 1922–23 loans for the next fiscal year, of which $400,000 should be paid at the end of this month and $100,000 when funds should be available for that purpose. The Department has discussed this proposal with Mr. Rogers, Vice President and acting chief of the Foreign Bondholders Protective Council, who said that he felt strongly that it is not a satisfactory substitution for the proposal of a total payment of $700,000, of which $400,000 should be paid October 1 and the other $300,000 should be paid only if the revenue position and outlook at the end of the first 6 months of the fiscal year ending September 30, 1945 indicates that receipts for the entire fiscal year will reach 35,000,000 gourdes. Mr. Rogers said that this $700,000 proposal with its flexible element safeguards the interests of both Haiti and the bondholders and could be supported before the latter while the proposal to pay only $500,000 irrespective of how high the Haitian revenue collections may go would be very hard to support before the bondholders or the public. He repeated that he felt this strongly.
Department has so informed the Haitian Ambassador and asked that he urge his Government to reconsider and accept the $700,000 proposal in view of the Council’s position.
In view of shortness of time to complete customary procedure, endeavor to expedite Government’s assent.
[For text of the supplementary agreement between the United States and Haiti, signed at Port-au-Prince November 9, 1944, by which the Haitian Government confirmed the plan outlined above, see Department of State Executive Agreement Series No. 440, or 58 Stat. (pt. 2) 1541.]
- Not printed.↩