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FRANCE 459
adopted, or which contemplated adopting, restrictive film regulations. These were the governments of France, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Italy, and Spain. No note was sent to Great Britain. Although Great Britain had set up a quota law which was unfavorable to American industry, it was already in operation and was designed to operate for a number of years. The notes pointed out the importance which the United States government attached to the matter. In previous negotiations on import restrictions, the State Department had adopted the policy of leaving to the industry the problem of effecting more favorable terms in the exportation of its products. American embassies and legations in the countries to which representations were sent were instructed to call upon the ministers for foreign affairs and to discuss the existing situation affecting the importation and distribution of American motion pictures. The text of the note sent was as follows:3
The government of the United States has for some time observed legislative and administrative developments in foreign countries as they affect the American motion picture industry, which has become one of the leading industries of the United States. There have been persistent and substantial demands for American pictures on the part of foreign exhibitors, and this has created an extensive foreign market for this American product.
The building up of this market has involved an investment of large proportions, and it is felt that this investment is jeopardized by certain governmental measures arbitrarily restricting the distribution of American films. The regulations are often so subject to arbitrary and unpredictable change that they introduce an element of commercial uncertainty and industrial instability to which American motion picture producers and distributors find it difficult or impossible to adjust themselves.
This government does not intend to question such measures as may be imposed by any country for the purpose of protecting through censorship the national traditions of public morals, but this government has adopted no restrictive regulations similar in any way to those enforced in certain foreign countries. It believes firmly that the interests of the motion picture industry in all countries are best promoted by the freest possible interchange of films based solely on the quality of the product.
The department has observed with sympathetic interest the increasing number of films which have entered the United States in recent years on a free competitive basis and that the American motion picture industry has always shown a willingness to collaborate in the most
3 As reported in the Film Daily, April 19, 1929.