835.73/88: Telegram

The Ambassador in Argentina ( Stimson ) to the Acting Secretary of State

Confidential. Your December [January] 14, 7 p.m. In accordance with the Departments instructions the Embassy has once more acquainted the Argentine Foreign Office of the interest of the Government of the United States in the extension of the Central and South American Telegraph Company’s lines. I am informed that no reply has as yet been sent by the Foreign Office to the protest lodged by the British Legation against the decree authorizing the extension of the company’s cables. The protest appears so far to have had no effect and the Minister of Foreign Affairs is stated to be both indignant at the manner in which the protest was worded and satisfied personally as to the justice of the concession.

The signature of the contract for the carrying out of the laying of the cable authorized by the presidential decree has not yet been effected, the company’s local attorney holding out for the elimination of the limitation of the life of the concession to thirty years, and objecting to certain details in connection with the governmental tax on messages passing over the company’s lines. The negotiations appear however to be advancing satisfactorily and the attorney is confident that the matter will soon be concluded, the question of the Argentine landing site having been already arranged.

Stimson