London Economic Conference

Its purpose was to win agreement on measures to fight the Great Depression, revive international trade, and stabilize currency exchange rates.

When the Great Depression devastated the world economy from 1929 to 1932, it was generally assumed that the United States would serve as a hegemon, providing leadership for a program to bring about recovery.

Roosevelt declared during his inaugural speech, "I shall spare no effort to restore world trade by international economic readjustment, but the emergency at home cannot wait on that accomplishment."

Staff of the League's Economic and Financial Organization (EFO) had severe misgivings about the initiative, as they correctly anticipated it might end in disaster.

In the event, it crystallized the impossibility of taking forward the orthodox agenda of the Brussels, Genoa and Geneva conferences under the new financial and political circumstances following the European banking crisis of 1931 and the takeover of Germany by the Nazi Party.

On June 17, fearing the British and the French would seek to control their own exchange rates, Roosevelt rejected the agreement in spite of his negotiators' pleas that the plan was only a temporary device, which was full of escape clauses.

On July 3, he issued a message to the conference that condemned its efforts at stabilization when "broader problems" existed and asserted that the exchange rate of a nation's currency was less important than other economic values.

British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald feared that "Roosevelt's actions would destroy the Conference" and Georges Bonnet, rapporteur of the French Monetary Commission, is said to have "exploded."