851.48/127: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Leahy) to the Secretary of State
[Received 9 p.m.]
44. My telegram No. 39, January 11, 4 p.m. I have received Flandin’s memorandum 16 pages in length, the last 6 of which concern the Far East and are being reported in a separate telegram.
After a brief mention of the opening of the Madrid negotiations with the British and the seriousness of the present situation the memorandum states that the shortage in wheat “reaches 10,500,000 quintals and this in spite of the reductions in rations, obligatory mixing with substitutes, et cetera. It is paricularly serious in the unoccupied zone which customarily has been supplied by excess production in the regions north of the Loire”. This year, states the memorandum, these regions “have no exportable surplus, the crops having been lost in great part as a result of war conditions at the time of the harvest”. The memorandum continues:
“If we can not import from abroad for the needs solely of the unoccupied zone 6,000,000 quintals of wheat, supplies will not last until the next crop and the civil population is in danger of being without bread for 2 months; certain regions will even be short by the 15th of March. Furthermore, the shortage in cattle, food supplies, exceeds 20,000,000 quintals and presents particularly delicate problems for the maintenance of our live stock. The importation of 2,000,000 quintals of foreign corn is the minimum to permit the feeding of cattle in the unoccupied zone if disastrous consequences of underfeeding are to be avoided.”
The French Government has instructed the Ambassador at Madrid to discuss with the British the following five points:
“(1) Free passage of 8,000,000 quintals of grain to be purchased by the French Government in the United States which are indispensable to cover the between-crop period; (2) trade in foodstuffs between the French possessions in Africa and the unoccupied zone; (3) trade in foodstuffs imported into the free zone from all French overseas possessions including Syria; (4) exchange of supplies (ravitaillement) between metropolitan France and its possessions or between those territories themselves; (5) the importation into the free zone of foodstuffs or products other than foodstuffs originating in foreign countries overseas, as well as that of products other than foodstuffs originating in our possessions.”
The French Government, the memorandum continues, “has requested that the importation of 8,000,000 quintals of grain from the [Page 98] United States be authorized immediately and if necessary without waiting for the conclusion of the general Franco-British negotiation on free passage through the blockade. It has indicated that it is ready to examine, under the aegis of American representatives in France, a system of control of a nature to give to the British Government sure guarantees of the consumption in the free zone of the grains imported.”
With reference to the second and third points quoted above the French Government states that the regulations at present in existence seem to it to offer guarantees to the British Government that products imported from North Africa and other possessions including Syria shall remain exclusively at the disposition of French consumers. It is ready in any case to furnish quarterly statements to the British Government with respect to the utilization of the consumption of foodstuffs thus imported.
With respect to the fourth point the French Government has indicated that it is ready to put into effect a system of guarantees similar to those Great Britain has with the Danubian countries of Europe. (I am now orally informed by the Foreign Office that in answer to a British inquiry at Madrid similar guarantees will be given if desired with reference to the second and third points.)
The memorandum then emphasizes the importance which the French Government attaches to the Madrid negotiations and urges our friendly help with the British authorities. It states that the failure of the negotiations “would present for France the most pressing problems which could not fail to have the gravest political consequences. The fact should not escape Great Britain herself that, in aggravating our difficulties of supplies, she runs the risk of playing the game of her own enemies (…13) from the political point of view one cannot escape the fact that an increase in the difficulties of supplying France is calculated to weaken the position of the Government and to create difficulties of an internal order which play the game of the occupying power. The granting of the right of free passage presents furthermore a special interest for the maintenance of the cohesion of the French Empire to which the Government of the United States attaches—as it has stressed on several occasions to our Ambassador—an essential interest. In depriving our colonies of their relations with the metropolis and foreign countries, or their relations with each other, the economic depression which would result would be likely to create a state of trouble which would furnish the enemies of Great Britain with pretexts for intervention.”
[Page 99]The second section of the memorandum which covers negotiations with us refers to instructions sent to Henry-Haye on January 8 concerning the mechanics of purchasing the aforesaid grains in the American market and their transportation. With respect to the latter point it states that, “The French Government is anxious to obtain the liberation of the 14 ships at present blocked in American harbors.” The French Government has asked us, according to the memorandum, for authorization to purchase the supplies and fuels “indispensable to the economy of our possessions, notably Morocco and French Equatorial Africa, where the economic and political situations are particularly disturbing to the French Government.” These purchases it states would be paid through the unblocking of French assets in the United States and transfers of gold from Martinique with respect to which the memorandum states: “Following several exchanges of views between our Ambassador and Mr. Morgenthau14 and Mr. Sumner Welles, the American administration has declared itself ready to examine these proposals and has already given a favorable opinion in principle.” There is likewise envisaged, states the memorandum, “with respect to purchases in the United States, partial payment through shipments of products from French Colonies especially interesting to the American market (cacao and peanuts from French Equatorial Africa, rubber from Indochina, graphite and minerals from Madagascar, et cetera)”.
The memorandum concludes with a statement that “this last means of payment can be examined when commercial negotiations between Indochina and the United States with respect to which the French Government has just made some proposals to the Washington Government are undertaken”.
The Department will have noted that in spite of the expressed desire of the Marshal and Flandin that food imports for the occupied territory likewise be authorized, the unlikelihood of obtaining agreement thereto is apparently realized and consequently the memorandum deals solely with the necessities of the unoccupied zone and the colonies.
The Madrid conversations, I am told, have opened in an encouraging atmosphere from the French point of view. The British are being informed that the S. S. Mendoza will sail January 14 from Buenos Aires with a cargo of meat and wheat for Marseille and hope is being expressed that since the shipment is solely for the unoccupied zone no effort will be made to stop the vessel.