File No. 812.6363/151.
The Confidential Agent of the Constitutionalist Government to the Secretary of State.
Mr. Secretary: I am directed by Señor Don Venustiano Carranza to inform your excellency that no confiscation is menacing foreign oil properties and that the only provision which was enacted refers to the general suspension of such works as were being conducted without authority from his Government; that oil wells under production are being operated without molestation; that several oil companies, taking advantages of our difficulties, were in all directions constructing pipe-lines, tanks, wharves, etc., and even attempting to sink new wells without permission from the Government. I am also directed to especially invite your excellency’s attention to the fact that the above provision has been taken for another order, suspending shipments of oil, by two or three companies who declined to pay taxes already due and whose shipments amounted to something like a half a million dollars per month; but that this matter is now on its way to a satisfactory ending inasmuch as some of the companies have begun, to pay the above-mentioned taxes.
I have [etc.]