462.00R296/4976: Telegram
The Chargé in France (Marriner) to the Acting Secretary of State
516. I saw Flandin this morning. He has received and been over all the information which the Embassy had transmitted to the Foreign Office in accordance with your cables and while fully comprehending the desirability of assisting with the German exchange in this manner saw no possibility of defending before Parliament a proposition which would mean payments by Germany of sums embodied in the scope of the Young Plan because of the exchange of letters of January 20, 1930, and which might also be attacked as assisting the payment of damages to other nationals at a time when the payment for the very damages caused by the war in France were suspended.
[Paraphrase.] Flandin discussed all the other issues which had been discussed previously. He particularly insisted that there was no necessary relation between our domestic law which requires payments from the United States to Germany and the intergovernmental payment from Germany to the United States.
As a practical matter he likewise felt that it would be easy enough to work out a method by which the Treasury would pay the difference between the amount owed to Germany and the amount owed by Germany [Page 288] to the United States. Nevertheless, Flandin would not commit himself on the French Government’s attitude in case such a proposal were made.
Flandin expressed his regret that this matter had not come up during the Paris conversations when the French Parliament was meeting. His implication was that the American desire for this payment from Germany might have made it possible for the French to have achieved certain modifications in the agreement reached at that time.
Livesey and I both insisted that the question was one of assistance to the German economy at this time and not a legal question, but Flandin could see no reason of an international character why this assistance could not be given in some other way regardless of a German payment. He apparently had neither the desire nor the intention of gambling his own political life or his Government’s in defending any plan that would allow Germany to pay any of the annuities included in the Young Plan report during the year of postponement. [End paraphrase.]
- Telegram in two sections.↩