File No. 825.6374/304
The Chilean Chargé ( Munizaga Varela ) to the Secretary of State
Sir: Referring to the Embassy’s memorandum of the 16th instant2 relative to the embargo placed upon petroleum owned by Messrs. Williamson Balfour & Co. and to the various conferences had on the subject at the Department of State, I have the honor to inform Your Excellency that I have received from my Government the following telegrams: [Page 712]
Please inform the Government to which you are accredited that the difficulties regarding petroleum have been adjusted and that the embargo placed on reservoir has been raised. The English Government has also been informed.
The firm of Duncan Fox & Co., which represents the Union Oil, tells me that the steamers La Brea, San Joaquin, and Coalinga, bound for Antofagasta, were stopped at Panama, landed the petroleum at Balboa, and afterwards cleared for Tampico. It adds that it received notice by cable on the 22d instant from the Union Oil that lubricants and petroleum can no longer be shipped, as license to export cannot be obtained from the Government of the United States. All the difficulties over the embargo being now adjusted, not to occur again, you will please endeavor to bring about the resumption of normal exportation of petroleum and lubricants to Chile, as otherwise the plants must be disabled in a few days more and the output of nitrate will be suspended to the detriment of the purchasers themselves.
I repeat that the German embargoes at Iquique and Tocopilla have been adjusted and the Government guarantees they will not occur again and that nothing hereafter will disturb the free production of nitrate. The English Government has declared itself satisfied and we beg you so to advise the Government to which you are accredited and to obtain from the authorities of the departments concerned permission for the free exportation of petroleum to Chile, so as to avert the paralyzation of the nitrate industry from which those who need the product would suffer.
I hope, Mr. Secretary of State, that Your Excellency’s Government, on the strength of the contents of the telegrams above quoted, will deign to issue the orders needed to make inoperative the measures taken in the matter of exporting petroleum and lubricants that are urgently needed by my country for the production of nitrate and the operation of the Chilean railways.
I avail myself [etc.]