760c.60f/60: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Wallace) to the Secretary of State
[Received 6 p.m.]
1751. After careful consideration of all the circumstances referred to in the second paragraph of the Department’s telegram no. 1493, I must respectfully venture to point out both the difficulty and the delicacy of urging the appointment of an American member of the Delimitation Commission upon the Conference of Ambassadors if at the same time I am to withhold my signature to the agreement under which the Commission is constituted, and by virtue of which alone our participation would be secured.
There would, furthermore, seem to be a conflict with the wording and intent of article 2 in demanding that the Conference undertake to accept the Commission’s recommendations in advance; in all probability such a demand would be refused, and our position in the Conference of Ambassadors, with regard to points in which we might be interested, would be rendered much more difficult.
I am investigating the questions raised by the Department in its telegram, first sentence, third paragraph. It seems that the Allied members of the former Commission for the Poland-Czechoslovakia boundary completed their labors sooner than anyone had expected. The Foreign Office itself was astonished to learn that a meeting had been held August 22 by the members of the Commission acting as the Teschen Commission. Investigation made by the Foreign Office and by me has failed to reveal what took place at this meeting or possibly subsequent meetings. From information at hand it would appear that there have been one or two other meetings of a preliminary character for the purpose of organization, but that nothing has [Page 71] been done other than to ask for instructions as to personnel and salaries, and to decide that the Commission will take up its work first in the district of Teschen.