Dear General Vanier,

You will be interested in the most recent development in our enquiries and suggestions about the procedure for the various stages of the Peace Conference. As you know; the decisions reached by the Council of Foreign Ministers and by the meeting of Foreign Ministers in Moscow in December have never made quite clear the exact relations between the various stages of peace.

When the French Government was invited to endorse the procedure proposed for the negotiation of the treaties, that Government questioned the provision relating to the participation by the countries invited to the Peace Conference in the actual drafting of the documents. The French pointed out that the Conference would apparently only consider and make recommendations concerning the drafts of the treaties, and that decisions on those recommendations would be, in fact, taken by the countries responsible for the conclusion of the final drafts. They requested assurances that the work of the larger Conference would be fully taken into account, and that the tentative procedure should be interpreted in a generous manner.

Before making a reply to the French Government the United Kingdom Government put before the United States a preliminary statement of its views on procedure. Discussions at the Paris Conference should be as thorough as possible, and its results should be given serious consideration in relation to the final texts. Their definite proposal was that the final texts might be agreed upon by all the countries represented at the Paris Conference before that Conference dissolved. The answer to the French enquiry, however, as agreed upon between the United States and the United Kingdom, while giving an assurance of full consideration to the recommendations of the Paris Conference, did not go as far as the tentative United Kingdom proposal.

We, therefore, felt it desirable to seek a clarification of this point from the Dominions Office and in a telegram ^l expressed our view that substantial advantages would derive from a procedure which allowed for discussion between all parties concerned of the various points arising at the Conference; and that this would be a more effective procedure than later consideration by the Council of Foreign Ministers of whatever individual recommendations might arise from the Conference. Finally we enquired whether, in the view of the Dominions Office, the agreed reply to Paris, as mentioned above, left room for consideration of this point.

We have now been informed by the United Kingdom Government that they agree with our views that there would be great advantages in a procedure by which the final texts of the treaties were drawn up before the May Conference should dissolve. On the particular point of our enquiry they hold the view that the reply to the French Government does leave room for further consideration of such an arrangement. They add that informal discussion suggests that the United States authorities are sympathetic towards this suggestion.

Yours sincerely,

N. A. ROBERTSON

¹ It would be helpful if you would take some convenient opportunity of an informal conversation of this question with the French authorities. I feel that much would be gained by avoiding a break between the large Conference in Paris and the completion of the texts by the Great Powers. Purely formal recommendations on paper by the former would necessarily be less effective than discussion.