740.0011 Mutual Guarantee (Locarno)/815: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
978. In the course of a conversation yesterday with Foreign Minister Delbos I took occasion to stress the intense interest of both the President and yourself in the removal of barriers to international trade. Delbos replied that like the President and yourself he was convinced that unless present obstacles to international commerce could be removed, it would be hopeless to expect to maintain peace. He added that the recent action of the French Government in removing certain quotas and reducing certain tariffs was an example of the line the French Government expected to follow.
I asked him if he had any concrete plan in mind for further action and he replied that he felt it might be highly desirable to have a conference soon on economic matters which, in its initial stages, should be confined to representatives of the United States, Great Britain and France, with the possible addition of Belgium. He said that he personally had the greatest admiration for Prime Minister Van Zeeland and felt that his participation in such a conference would be most desirable. I replied that in my opinion it would be inadvisable to call any conference until the ground had been fully prepared in advance by conversations through established diplomatic channels. I added that we were most interested in freeing international trade12 but at the same time desired to avoid a repetition of the London Economic [Page 359] Conference.13 He said that he fully agreed that complete preparation was essential.
Delbos said that the French Government still had hopes that the proposed five-power “Locarno conference” might take place within a few weeks. In this connection I referred to the relations of France and the Soviet Union and asked him if the French Government intended to go ahead with the conversations between the French and the Russian General Staffs which were agreed upon at the time of the signature of the Franco-Soviet Pact of Mutual Assistance but have never taken place. He replied that the French Government would not permit any such conversations until after the “Locarno conference” had either taken place or until it had become evident that it would not take place. He said that the French Government would not do anything at present which might give Germany a pretext to remain aloof from the proposed “Locarno conference”.
Delbos stated that he was still seriously disturbed about the Spanish situation. He said that representatives of the Spanish Government at the moment were very active in pressing charges regarding violations of the nonintervention agreement by Germany and Italy. He felt that some reaction might be expected from the Labor Party in England, Socialist Party in Belgium, and the parties of the Popular Front in France. He stated, however, that there was no question of the French Government abandoning its attitude of strict neutrality and nonintervention.
- Telegram in two sections.↩
- See pp. 486 ff.↩
- See Foreign Relations, 1933, vol. i, pp. 452 ff.↩