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there would be any objection to including such a provision in the treaty if negotiations should progress to a point where the language to be employed needed to be considered. The Secretary pointed out that in his note he stated explicitly that the precise language to be used in the treaty was a matter of indifference to the United States provided the purpose was accomplished.

The Secretary informed the Ambassador that the English text of the note was being telegraphed to the American Embassy at Paris for communication to the Foreign Office for its convenience so that the Ambassador need only telegraph a French translation. The Secretary also informed the Ambassador that the note was being released to the press for publication in Wednesday morning's papers. Mr. Olds 11 and Mr. Phenix were present during the Secretary's interview with the Ambassador.

S[PENCER] P[HENIX]

711.5112France/192: Circular telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France (Herrick) 12

WASHINGTON, March 1, 1928-4 p. m.

Press reports from Paris indicate some confusion as to the resolution of the Havana Conference referred to in my note of February 27, 1928. For your information and such use as may seem to you desirable, there were two anti-war resolutions adopted by the Havana Conference, one dealing only with wars of aggression and the other expressing unqualified condemnation of all war.

The text of the general resolution referred to in my note is as follows:

"The Sixth International Conference of American States resolves: Whereas: The American Republics desire to express that they condemn war as an instrument of national policy in their mutual relations; and

Whereas: The American Republics have the most fervent desire to contribute in every possible manner to the development of international means for the pacific settlement of conflicts between States:

1. That the American Republics adopt obligatory arbitration as the means which they will employ for the pacific solution of their international differences of a juridical character.

2. That the American Republics will meet in Washington within the period of one year in a conference of conciliation and arbitration to give conventional form to the realization of this principle, with the minimum exceptions which they may consider indispensable to safeguard the independence and sovereignty of the States, as well as matters of

"Under Secretary of State.

"See last paragraph for instructions to repeat to the American Embassies in Germany, Great Britain, and Italy. Also sent to the Embassy in Japan.

a domestic concern, and to the exclusion also of matters involving the interest or referring to the action of a State not a party to the convention.

3. That the Governments of the American Republics will send for this end plenipotentiary jurisconsults with instructions regarding the maximum and the minimum which they would accept in the extension of obligatory arbitral jurisdiction.

4. That the convention or conventions of conciliation and arbitration which may be concluded should leave open a protocol for progressive arbitration which would permit the development of this beneficent institution up to its maximum.

5. That the convention or conventions which may be agreed upon, after signature, should be submitted immediately to the respective Governments for their ratification in the shortest possible time."

The text of the resolution against aggression is as follows:

"The Sixth International Conference of American States: Considering:

That the American nations should always be inspired in solid cooperation for justice and the general good:

That nothing is so opposed to this cooperation as the use of violence: That there is no international controversy, however serious it may be, which cannot be peacefully arranged if the parties desire in reality to arrive at a pacific settlement:

That war of aggression constitutes an international crime against the human species:

It resolves:

1. All aggression is considered illicit and as such is declared prohibited.

2. The American States will employ all pacific means to settle conflicts which may arise between them."

[Paraphrase]

Both of the said resolutions, it appears, were passed at final plenary session Havana Conference. The Conference obviously intended to go on record as opposed to all war; having condemned war as an instrument of national policy, the Conference found no difficulty in condemning aggressive war as well. It is not necessary, perhaps, to point out the difference between resolutions like these adopted at an international conference and formal treaties which are entered into with idea of preventing recourse to war as far as it is possible so to do. The objection we have to concluding a treaty limited by incorporation of an attempted definition of aggression is that, first, it seems to us to be difficult, if not impossible, to obtain working definition of aggressive war; and second, that even if it were theoretically possible to obtain such a definition, the result in practice would be to defeat largely if not entirely the main object that all of us are seeking.

Repeat to Embassies at London, Berlin and Rome.

KELLOGG

711.5112France/193: Telegram

The Ambassador in Great Britain (Houghton) to the Secretary of

State

[Paraphrase}

LONDON, March 3, 1928—1 p. m.
[Received March 3-10: 15 a. m.]

42. Department's circular telegram, March 1. In the second resolution quoted, the term "aggression" and not "war of aggression" is used. Does "aggression" as here used mean merely hostile acts preceding or leading up to war? If all war is renounced then certainly all acts of aggression which might result in war must be renounced also. Is this interpretation correct?

HOUGHTON

711.5112France/197: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain

(Houghton)

[Paraphrase]

WASHINGTON, March 3, 1928-5 p. m. 53. Your No. 42, March 3, 1 p. m. As you will notice, the first resolution passed is substantially in language of Briand proposal condemning war as instrument of national policy. This includes, naturally, everything in other resolution which was passed last. As originally framed and presented to plenary session of the Conference by the Mexican delegate, this resolution against aggression contained in article I the word "war" so that the resolution would read: "All war of aggression is considered illicit and as such is declared prohibited." Señor Guerrero 13 moved that it be amended by striking out "war of", so that as passed the resolution reads: "All aggression is considered illicit and as such is declared prohibited." I understand that Guerrero explained that there were acts of aggression which stopped short of war, and that he wished to declare against those. First resolution passed would not only include war, naturally, but acts of aggression which, as you state in your telegram, might result in war. At all events, the resolution which the committee reported and which was unanimously passed condemned all war as an instrument of national policy, and it is significant fact that of the countries voting for this resolution 17 were also members of the League of Nations.

KELLOGG

13 Gustavo Guerrero, chairman of the Salvadoran delegation to the Sixth International Conference of American States at Habana.

711.5112France/211: Telegram

The Ambassador in Germany (Schurman) to the Secretary of State

[Paraphrase]

BERLIN, March 16, 1928—11 a. m.
[Received March 16-9:30 a. m.]

52. Yesterday evening I talked for an hour with Stresemann.1a Since his return to Berlin Tuesday he has been much occupied with political and diplomatic matters, especially the difficulty which has arisen over the arrest in Russia of German engineers, on which the German Government is taking a strong stand. . . .

Stresemann said, in reply to an inquiry by me, that your war prevention treaties had been discussed by the big five at Geneva only once, and then informally. Briand had said to his colleagues, in lighter vein, that when he had proposed to America a treaty providing that France and the United States should renounce war as an instrument of their national policy toward each other he had meant it rather as a gesture, but now that the Secretary of State's reply had invested it with importance he might wish in the future to consult them on the subject; that in the meantime he wanted only to ask them one question: Had the American Government communicated with their Governments in regard to it? To this inquiry Chamberlain,15 Adachi 16 and Stresemann said that it had.

SCHURMAN

711.5112France/229

The French Ambassador (Claudel) to the Secretary of State

[Translation]

WASHINGTON, March 30, 1928. MR. SECRETARY OF STATE: In reply to your note of February 27 last regarding the proposal for a multilateral treaty proscribing war, I have the honor to inform Your Excellency that M. Briand has been pleased to find in the observations which you have submitted for his consideration a new and cordial affirmation of the common inspiration which animates our two Governments equally anxious to cooperate in an international movement toward the effective establishment of peace in the world. Assured of such a solidarity in the pursuit of an identical purpose, M. Briand remains convinced, as does Your Excellency, that a mutually acceptable formula may well result from the

15

16

Dr. Gustav Stresemann, German Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Sir Austen Chamberlain, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

Japanese representative on the Council of the League of Nations.

exchange of views which has taken place up to now between our two Governments, if on both sides there is a disposition to adhere to those essential realities which must be preserved in this discussion, by subordinating thereto those differences of form to which questions of terminology not affecting the substance of the discussion may upon analysis be reduced.

That is to say, that the French Government at this point of the discussion, when all the aspects of the problem have been examined, proposes to adopt as practical a point of view as possible and to facilitate as far as it can the effort of the American Government in the direction of an immediate decision.

The observations which M. Briand has ventured to offer in support of his last suggestion were inspired by a very sincere desire to facilitate in a practical manner the realization of the proposal for the contemplated multilateral treaty by pointing out the conditions best adapted to bring about the consent thereto of all the Governments whose agreement is necessary. The French wording, therefore, tending to limit to war of aggression the proscription proposed in the form of a multilateral rather than a bilateral treaty, was intended to obviate in so far as the American plan was concerned those serious difficulties which would assuredly be encountered in practice. In order to pay due regard to the international obligations of the signatories, it was not possible, as soon as it became a question of a multilateral treaty, to impart thereto the unconditional character desired by Your Excellency without facing the necessity of obtaining the unanimous adherence of all the existing States, or at least of all the interested States, that is to say, those which by reason of their situation are exposed to the possibility of a conflict with any one of the contracting States. In the relations between the States of the American Continent there are similar difficulties which led the American Government at the Pan American Conference at Habana to approve a resolution limited to the very terms "war of aggression" which the French Government felt compelled to use in characterizing the renunciation to which it was requested to bind itself by means of a multilateral treaty. To be sure, the same reservation does not appear in another resolution to which Your Excellency referred in your note of February 27, but it must be observed that this resolution in itself constituted only a kind of preliminary tending toward a treaty of arbitration with regard to which numerous reservations were formulated.

Your Excellency appears to have been surprised that France should not be able to conclude with all the Powers in the form of a multilateral treaty the same treaty which she offered to conclude separately with the United States in the form of a bilateral treaty. My Government believes that it has explained this point with sufficient clearness in

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