851.48/379

The French Ambassador (Henry-Haye) to the Secretary of State

[Translation]

The Ambassador of France considers it necessary to set forth once more and as completely as possible the position taken by his Government on the subject of furnishing supplies to continental France. The French food situation, which threatens to become disastrous if decisions are not taken very promptly, constrains him again to draw the whole attention of the American Government to this problem.

The causes of the present situation are too well known for it to serve any purpose to review them at length: the considerable increase in the consumption of products in France, which results from the presence of the army of occupation, from the necessity of feeding three million alien refugees in the unoccupied zone, and from the levies effected in the occupied zone by the German authority, has coincided with a marked decrease in the supply of these products. In fact, it was not possible to proceed normally with the harvest, livestock has been decimated, industrial production is disorganized. In addition, the inadequacy of fuels, gasoline or coal has hindered the regular course of transportation, in such way that foodstuffs remain unused in the producing regions at a time when the consuming regions are suffering the most agonizing want.

However, it is hardly important to stop and seek the causes; only the consequences of this situation should today retain the attention of the French Government and of governments which are friends of France. According to the latest reports received from Vichy, the overlapping period between the two harvests will require the importation of 6 million quintals of wheat and two million quintals of corn. [Page 113] If within the next six weeks we have not been able to organize the first shipments of cereals and their distribution, there will be a complete lack of bread and animal feeds in France.

A plan to this effect has already been orally submitted to the Department of State by representatives of this Embassy. It embraces in essence:

1)
The purchase in the United States or in a country of the American continent of the quantities of cereals indicated above and of the gasoline necessary for their distribution through the use of a part of the assets of the French Government now blocked in this country.
2)
The transportation of these goods on French vessels now immobilized in American or French ports, such transportation to be effected under the protection of British navicerts or with the tacit authorization of Great Britain.
3)
The distribution of these products in France through the intermediary of neutral organizations, preferably American, so as to guarantee their consumption by those for whom they are actually intended. Such distribution would at first be limited to the free zone.

In submitting such a proposal to the Government of the United States, the French Government is firmly convinced that putting it into effect would entail no hindrance or assistance to the action of either of the belligerents. It knows the arguments which have often enough been adduced in the contrary sense. It has studied them with care and believes that it can reply to them.

First of all, the fear has been expressed that goods intended for the populations of the occupied countries may be the object of a levy by the occupying power. This would indeed be the case if the distribution of the products imported should escape a genuine neutral control, and it is such control that France wishes to see established. This Embassy is willing to discuss with the Department of State all practical modalities thereof. If the precautions taken should not give entire satisfaction, if after a first trial—the consequences of which would in no way be a matter of concern for British interests—it should be proved that all or part of the shipments authorized had been diverted, the French Government would then be willing to give up its request.

But some persons, while admitting that the products imported may actually be consumed by those for whom they are intended, fear that a result will be that Germany will be in a position to levy supplementary and equivalent amounts of similar products from French resources. This reasoning is quite accurate if these similar products still exist in the country in adequate amounts. Now, we no longer have any important stock of wheat, corn, oil and fats. It would thus be very difficult for Germany to increase its levies on our national reserves of these products.

Thus, the mechanism suggested, now limited to cereals, would have the sole consequence of feeding France without increasing the supplies [Page 114] of the occupying power. It must furthermore be noted that the latter already has important stocks of these products, so that the English sea control, applied uniformly to all products and particularly to food products, has the result of reducing the peoples of Europe to famine, with the sole exception of Germany.

Finally, the opinion has been expressed that a consequence of the British blockade should be, by creating want in the conquered countries, to lead them to revolt against the occupying power. So cruel a calculation seems to proceed from a psychological, or even a physiological, error; for one can ask oneself how men whose physical condition condemns them to inactivity could dream of revolting.

In brief, the French Government, without requesting that any impairment be done to the actual principle of the blockade, is convinced that certain arrangements could usefully be put into force. It considers that a first trial should be made immediately by the dispatch of two French vessels which are now in the port of New York and which might be the Léopold L. D. and L’Ile de Ré, each of 6,700 tons, loaded with a cargo of 10,000 tons of wheat and 3,400 tons of corn. It accordingly requests that the exchange value of these products, or $400,000, be unblocked from the assets which it has in the United States. It further wishes that measures of neutral control be initiated, assuring the correct distribution of these products in the free zone.

The fate of the French race is concerned; and the ascertaining of whether, after the war, regardless of the issue thereof, it will be to the interest of nations to have this element of equilibrium which our nation has always constituted in Europe weakened for long years, if not destroyed, to the benefit of other continental races.

The Ambassador of France does not doubt that these political arguments, joined to the humanitarian considerations which have always inspired the American tradition, will move the Government of the United States to study this problem with sympathy and diligence, and to take the action necessary for its solution.

Mr. Henry-Haye is happy to take this occasion to renew [etc.]