Confidential Report from Leo T. McCauley to Joseph P. Walshe (Dublin)
(76/30)

The news concerning the financial crisis in London has been received here with consternation. The newspapers have panic head lines, the stock exchanges are closed throughout Germany, and no one knows what is going to happen. The general opinion is of course that Germany will suffer immediate loss like the rest of the world, but that the general shaking up may hasten a return to better conditions. I have not yet heard whether the Paris bourse is functioning today. People hope that it may close like stock exchanges elsewhere and that some kind of voluntary moratorium may be instituted everywhere to prevent panic sales. New York begins work so many hours after this part of the world that there is not yet time to know what is happening there. In any case Berlin is looking towards Paris and New York to see what the immediate effects of the crisis are going to be. Everybody seems to think that France is responsible - deliberately responsible - for the crash. A banker, whom I met at midday, said that they had no idea what was going to happen but that they expected a fall of at least 10% in the value of the pound.