Office of the Historian

838.51/3665a

The Department of State to the Haitian Legation

Memorandum

The Government of the United States can not but reiterate its disappointment that contrary to the informal assurances given the American Minister and the Acting Fiscal Representative, the 1910 loan question should have been embodied in a protocol of signature annexed to the Franco-Haitian Commercial Convention signed on June 24, 1938. In view of its responsibilities to the holders of the 1922 [Page 622] Haitian bonds, the Government would welcome definite assurances on the following points:

1.
That the Haitian Government will not publish the Protocol in Haiti and will not submit it for ratification by the Haitian Parliament;
2.
That the Haitian Government will obtain from the French Government written assurances that the fund envisaged in paragraph four of the Protocol will not be transferred from the National City Bank of New York to a bank under French jurisdiction except as may be necessary from time to time through an inter-bank operation to assure the reimbursement of the individual outstanding bonds of the 1910 loan when they may be presented for redemption to the Banque de l’Union Parisienne; and
3.
That the Haitian Government will obtain from the French Government written assurances that the French Government will not support any further claim on the part of any present or former holders of bonds of the 1910 loan for payment beyond that envisaged in the protocol.

Washington , July 16, 1938.