File No. 835.73/73
The Ambassador in Argentina ( Stimson ) to the Secretary of State
Your March 29, 7 p.m., and March 29, 6 p.m. With regard to the application made by the Central & South American Telegraph Co. on March 8, 1917, to the Argentine Government for the naming of a landing site for their cables from Brazil to Argentina, and the further application to the same effect made by the company in October last, I have, as instructed by the Department, made requests of the Foreign Office that its reply in the matter be made as soon as possible.
In regard to the instructions contained in the Department’s March 29, 7 p.m., regarding the discrimination permitted by the. Argentine Government against cables received from North America destined for Brazil. I have discussed the matter fully with the company’s manager here. He is of the opinion, in which I entirely concur, that [Page 42] the matter is one which at present calls for a protest by the company to the Ministry of the Interior, and if necessary, subsequent legal action, with the Embassy’s intervention as the ultimate remedy. It will be remembered that the company in 1898, by legal action against even higher discriminatory rates in use by the Western Telegraph Co., obtained a favorable decision from the Argentine courts and a resultant closing of the Western Telegraph Co.’s operations for a period of nine months. Moreover, and as it seems to me of greater value in the argument against the Embassy’s present intervention in the latter matter, as the Department has already been advised, the Embassy is at present endeavoring to the best of its ability to assist the company in obtaining the permission from the Argentine Government which it requested on February 20 last to lay a cable from Argentina to Montevideo. This concession in any case will automatically solve the problem of the transportation of the cables from North America to Uruguay and Brazil, and will probably also entail the selection by the Government of the desired landing site.
I have requested an interview of the President to lay the matter of the desired concession before him in case events take any unfavorable turning in regard to the granting of the concession. But from conversation with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, I believe that the matter is receiving favorable consideration; and I fear that if the Embassy at this time puts in too many requests regarding the company’s projects, the issues will become confused and the main feature desired, that of the right to lay cables from Argentina to Montevideo, which will solve the other problems, may be rejected and some minor points at issue be conceded.