551.5F1/140: Telegram
The Minister in Switzerland (Wilson) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received 7:21 p.m.]
99. Department’s No. 84, July 25, 2 p.m. I have very discreetly mentioned to the Acting Secretary-General53 your idea to have the League promote a conference on silver.
[Page 622]Dufour replied that the Secretariat has made no investigation along this line. While Sir Arthur Salter was in the Far East, the subject attracted his attention, and he is now in London pursuing it further. He is no longer connected with the Secretariat, however. A directive from the Assembly or Council would be necessary before the Secretariat could review the case. The initiative for calling a conference would have to be taken by either the Assembly or Council, preferably the former. The procedure is introduction of a resolution in the Assembly by a member state and debate in the Fourth Committee. In the opinion of Dufour, the acceptance of such a resolution would be highly possible.
Inasmuch as he is shortly leaving for Berlin, the Acting Secretary-General pointed out that he could, perhaps, prompt his Government to introduce a resolution in the next session of the Assembly. Dufour’s view is: “The German Government has to put up so many proposals in which it is deeply interested that it would probably be glad to push one in which it was clearly disinterested.”
If you are favorably disposed to this suggestion of Dufour, I should like to be advised. If not, my opinion is that the matter should be postponed until the return of the Secretary-General from his vacation one month hence.
- Albert Dufour-Feronce, Under Secretary-General and Director of International Bureaux Section, Secretariat, League of Nations.↩