481.11/130½
The Diplomatic Agent at Tangier (Blake) to the Secretary of
State
No. 1370
Tangier, July 15, 1938.
[Received July
30.]
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the
receipt of Instruction No. 996 of June 24, 1938, and I beg to
enclose copy of a Note which, in pursuance thereof, I have addressed
to the Resident General of France at Rabat.
I shall not fail to advise the Department by cable, as soon as
General Noguès, in response to my communication, shall have
indicated his readiness to proceed with negotiations for the
settlement of existing American claims in French Morocco.
Respectfully yours,
[Enclosure]
The Diplomatic Agent at Tangier
(Blake) to the French
Resident General in Morocco (Noguès)
Mr. Resident General: I have the honor
to recall to Your Excellency’s attention the matter of the
settlement of American claims in the French Zone of Morocco,
which have been the subject of discussion between the Diplomatic
Cabinet at Rabat and the American Consulate at Casablanca, and
also between your Residency General and the American Legation at
Tangier, over a period of several years.
I presume that Your Excellency has been informed of certain
correspondence exchanged between the French Embassy and the
Department of State in Washington, particularly, of a Note dated
October 19, 193741 from the latter
responding to a communication of August 26, 1937,42 by
which the French Government requested the American Government to
consider the conclusion of an agreement between the United
States and France, similar to that concluded between France and
Great Britain, in relation to a surrender of capitulatory rights
in Morocco.
In that correspondence, it may be noted, the Department of State
expressed a desire for a settlement of the American claims above
referred
[Page 883]
to, in order
that all outstanding questions affecting the interests of the
French Zone might be solved to the mutual satisfaction of the
two governments.
Consequently, under the authority of the Department of State, I
now have the honor to approach Your Excellency with a view to
the arrangement between us of details for such a settlement. I
therefore trust that Your Excellency will be good enough to
favor me, at a conveniently early date, with proposals as to a
conference for the examination of a mutually satisfactory
solution of the matters herein referred to.
Please accept [etc.]
