Office of the Historian

611.5231/406: Telegram

The Ambassador in Spain (Moore) to the Secretary of State

Madrid, April 17, 1925—4 p.m.
[Received 6:40 p.m.]

13. After numerous conferences I have received the following proposition from Admiral Magaz, Acting President Military Directorate:

“In an interview recently held with the Assistant Secretary of State, Your Excellency referred to a note of your Government dated December 5, 1924, in which the proposition was made to His Majesty’s Government that a commercial agreement of temporary nature be negotiated between the United States and Spain pending the arrangement of a new commercial treaty between the two countries, a temporary agreement based on unconditional reciprocal favored-nation treatment. The Assistant Secretary having explained to Your Excellency the reasons of a legal nature that prevent the Government of His Majesty from agreeing to negotiate on that basis, which the Ambassador of His Catholic Majesty at Washington has been instructed to communicate to the North American Government, Your Excellency suggested to the Acting Foreign Minister as a subsidiary solution that the commercial regime in effect, which will terminate May 5th next, be extended.

The Government of His Majesty after careful consideration given to the suggestion of Your Excellency in this respect agrees to accept in principle that solution; but at the same time, in view of the great injury to so important a factor of Spanish production as the grapes of Almeria that has been and continues to be occasioned by the policy of the American Government4 which in the opinion of the Government of His Majesty is unjustified for the reasons communicated to that Government, in requesting derogation [modification] of the same the Spanish Government would regard with pleasure and would appreciate as an evidence of the good will animating the Washington Government for the development of commercial relations between the two countries without limitation or restrictions, should the latter be willing to examine this matter anew with the purpose of seeing if it would be possible to conform to its5 expressed desire.

I have then the honor to inform Your Excellency that the Government of His Majesty would agree to extend the period of the present commercial regime whose effects should terminate on May 5th next [Page 709] for a period which, in order to be agreeable to the Washington Government, it would be willing to fix as one year more, or until May 5th, 1926, if the latter in exchange would be favorably inclined to reexamine the matter in reference, animated by a standard of benevolence for the benefit of a normal development of the commercial relations between our two countries.[”]

Will the Department kindly instruct me what answer to make to the above?

Moore
  1. An embargo on the importation of grapes and other fruits from regions where the Mediterranean fruit fly was present (including the Spanish province of Almeria), was laid by the Federal Horticultural Board in its Plant Quarantine No. 56.↩
  2. i. e., the Spanish Government’s.↩