711.4112Anti-War/98: Telegram
The Ambassador in Great Britain (Houghton) to the Secretary of State
[Received 2:45 p.m.]
122. Last night Chamberlain dined alone with me at his suggestion; we spent a long evening together. He desired especially that I should understand his policy toward France, contrasting the difficulties which [Page 73] had existed between the two countries as long as Great Britain had maintained a distant attitude with the good results which had followed directly upon putting his policy of friendship into effect. Chamberlain went into this in detail and with evident sincerity. He then spoke of his recent note to you, saying that he was heartily in favor of your proposal, as were the Government and people of Great Britain. He added that he felt he could do much to bring the French to accept your point of view, considering his especial relations of friendship with France. He had informed the French that he could not possibly endorse their note and that he could not accept all their reservations. He agreed that it was necessary to find some way of tying up the interpretations which you gave in your Washington address to the treaty itself. He would accept the treaty as it stands if the matter were solely between you and him, but as so many nations were involved it was obvious that some basis of interpretation satisfactory to you must be found. He had given thought several times to the question whether an informal discussion between Olds70 and [Henry?]71 would not forward the matter, but of course he had not made any such suggestion to anyone. He said that he was speaking thus frankly to me because we were talking intimately and not as Foreign Secretary to Ambassador. I thanked him and said that I was certain of his good will toward the treaty and was confident that he would do all in his power to bring France into line with your proposal. I added, however, that what he said left me with the impression that in a couple of ways his note was not wholly satisfactory:
In the first place, I was uncertain that he had even now grasped your meaning precisely. I was merely your agent and had no authority to read into the treaty any more than it said, but that in my personal belief the proposal boiled down to three elements: (1) A general acceptance of the status quo; (2) renunciation by each signatory of right to wage private war to break that status; (3) violation of the treaty by any nation automatically released other signatories as toward the offending nation. That is to say, a nation making war for its own private purposes would become an offender against all the others. Each nation was left entirely free, of course, to take such action as was suitable to the situation in whatever manner it saw fit or to remain quiescent, but that the offending nation would necessarily occupy a position somewhat analogous to that of a lawbreaker in any community. Chamberlain seemingly found in this analysis a new point of view; he seized upon it and said that he agreed with it wholly. He thought that France would also agree when the proposal [Page 74] was understood, but that at present France undoubtedly was fearful that the treaty in some way would prove inimical to the League Covenant and the Locarno agreement and the existing treaties. I replied that I thought that you had cleared all this ground satisfactorily, and he said that he had thought so too, but that the French must be given sufficient time to accommodate themselves to what, after all, was a new conception of international relations. He added that the French Ambassador (Fleuriau) had told him that as your recent note had not been addressed to France there was no assurance that France would reply to it. I replied that I was not informed.
I then remarked, as my second point, that my feeling was that his reference to a British “Monroe Doctrine” was unfortunate, as it opened a veritable Pandora’s box of difficulties. Were Great Britain now to set up a Monroe Doctrine would France and Italy and Japan also find expedient the development of Monroe Doctrines of their own? If they did, a serious situation must result. This comment seemed greatly to trouble Chamberlain, who expressed the hope that his statement would be followed by no such result, as he had made it only to reassure Parliament over Egypt. As for Japan, he had heard that an unconditional acceptance would be forwarded. I said that I hoped, likewise, that no untoward results would follow, but I emphasized strongly my opinion that efforts to surround the treaty with reservations seemed most unfortunate.
Chamberlain then said that certain American comments on his statement had greatly puzzled him, as he had understood that there was no objection to the fourth point of the French reply. This statement had been based, he said, upon a memorandum from Sir Esme Howard in which you were quoted to this effect. He Avent on to say that he perceived many objections to a reported formula in which the phrase “involved in war” was used. He pointed out that this made possible the attack of either party, the guilty with the innocent alike, by the other signatories.
His final statement, which he made with a good deal of earnestness, was that at any time he might be brought before an international court where his treaty obligations would be interpreted technically and in a purely legal way; that I must realize, therefore, that for his protection a correct phraseology was an absolute necessity. There could be nothing taken for granted.
Chamberlain will leave for Geneva tomorrow and will not return until the end of June. He plans to go away again for a vacation of six or eight weeks about September 1.