462.00R296/5376
The Under Secretary of State (Cattle) to the Secretary of State
Mr. Secretary: The Italian, British and Polish Ambassadors, the Lithuanian and Finnish Ministers came to ask me quite informally as to the attitude of this Government with regard to payment of the amount due on their respective debts on December 15th. They stated that they had come on their own responsibility. To all of them I explained that, in accordance with the memorandum which Mr. Mills read to the Senate Committee,36 neither the President nor any executive department could change the legal status of debts, but owing to the special circumstances connected with the President’s proposal for a year’s moratorium on inter-governmental debts, and the fact that legislation legalizing this had been submitted to Congress, we felt that, if they did not make the December 15th payment, they would not be subject to just criticism.
- See Postponement of Intergovernmental Debts: Hearings Before the Committee on Finance, United States Senate, 72d Cong., 1st sess., on H. J. Res. 147 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1931), p. 2.↩