File No. 832.61333/101.
The American Ambassador to the Secretary of State.
Rio de Janeiro , September 3, 1912 .
An hour ago I was informed by the Brazilian Minister for Foreign Affairs that the Brazilian Ambassador at Washington had cabled him on the 2d instant that the American press had published reports to the effect that the Attorney General intends to revive the investigation of the legal status of valorized coffee. The Brazilian Minister for Foreign Affairs told me that the Brazilian Government would deplore greatly a revival of this delicate question and that it fails to comprehend the alleged justification of the attitude taken by the Department of Justice of the United States. General public opinion throughout Brazil as well as in the State of São Paulo is most sensitive to any attack on valorization, and the growing commercial interests between the United States and Brazil will very probably be jeopardized if the coffee market should be broken by an enforced sale of valorized stock in New York, which stock, according to the valorization program, if left unmolested will be liquidated by gradual sales. The Government of Brazil attaches great importance to the international aspects of this matter.