462.00 R 294/225: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Herrick) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 25—1:16 p.m.]
259. My 256 [255], May 23, 1 p.m., W–50, ante-penultimate paragraph, Italian member Reparation Commission has handed me copy of note which his Government has addressed to Child in Rome, and which is identical with Belgian note.
I have just received French note from Foreign Office. After preamble similar to that of Belgian and Italian notes second paragraph reads as follows:
“The Government of the Republic, however, desires to declare that, if it has consented to sign the draft agreement thus modified, it is because it interprets article 248 of the Treaty of Versailles, the [Page 180] scope of which it has no intention of limiting in signing said agreement, as permitting ‘the protection, in favor of the Allied and Associated Powers which have ratified the Treaty of Versailles, of the priority reparations and other charges resulting from the said treaty over other engagements and obligations of Germany.’”
Thus the French note in the part subquoted above differs from the Belgian and Italian notes.