600.90D9/14
The Chargé in France (Murphy) to the Secretary of State
No. 6272
Paris, March 20,
1940.
[Received April 9.]
Sir: I have the honor to transmit copies
and a translation of a note dated March 17, 1940, which has been
received from the Sous-Direction d’Afrique-Levant of the Foreign
Office in acknowledgment of protests filed by the Embassy, at the
instance of the Department, on February 5 and 8, respectively,
following the introduction into Syria and also in the French
Colonies and Mandated Territories in Africa of measures of control
and restriction considered to be in contravention of American treaty
rights.
There are also enclosed, for the completion of the Department’s
files, copies of the Embassy’s note to the Foreign Office of
February 5,47 based
upon the Department’s telegram No. 89 of February 3, and of the aide-mémoire left with the appropriate
official in the Sous-Direction de l’Afrique-Levant on February
8,48
following along the lines of the Department’s airmail instruction
No. 1929 of January 25, 1940.
Respectfully yours,
[Enclosure—Translation]
The French Ministry for
Foreign Affairs to the American
Embassy
Under dates of February 5 and 8 last, the Embassy of the United
States of America was good enough to apprise the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs of the views of the Department of State with
respect to certain measures which have recently been adopted in
Togo, the Cameroons, Syria and the Lebanon, as well as in the
French possessions of Equatorial Africa, at least so far as the
territory of these latter is situated within the Congo Basin as
established by Convention.
The Ministry has the honor to inform the Embassy that these
measures, including those by which the High Commissioner of the
Republic at Beirut has regulated the export of wool, are
inspired with a view to diminishing the consequences of the
profound upheaval which the economic structure of the countries
in question is undergoing.
Nevertheless it is the intention of the Government of the
Republic to maintain this regime only so long as may be
justified by circumstances. It will disappear with the
conditions which called it into being.
