611.5231/417: Telegram

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

18. In a memorandum dated today, Foreign Office [addressed] the Embassy as follows: [Page 711]

“In reply to the first point7 the Ministry has the honor [to] inform the Embassy of the United States that the Spanish Government is willing that the agreement signed by the exchange of notes of April 26, 19248 remain in force until May 5, 1926 instead of May 5, 1925 and that if at least three months before May 5, 1926 it has not been denounced by either of the contracting parties it shall continue in force indefinitely thereafter and until three months after the date of its denouncement.

With respect to the second point of memorandum regarding the according to the United States of advantages conceded by Spain to other countries subsequently to November 5, 1923 and of those which may be compounded [conceded] hereafter, the Ministry of State has to inform the Embassy that there is no legal possibility of such action because, independently of the slight importance which such a concession may hold for the United States, and which it might be disposed to grant, the fact of doing so would imply agreement to something contrary to the existing arrangement.

It would be a question therefore of a new agreement, and even if such an unimportant concession were included therein, several of the present concessions, could not be granted as new concessions, since, as they are reductions in excess of 20 percent below the second column of the customs tariff, they would be illegal under the present law and they can continue in force only in case they are concessions granted prior to the expiration of the law of April 22, 1922.”

In view of proposal submitted in my cipher telegram numbered 17 of April 28 [29], 3 p.m. I shall await a reply to this message before communicating further with the Spanish Government.

Moore
  1. See second paragraph of Department’s telegram No. 11, Apr. 21, p. 709.
  2. The notes, dated Apr. 26, 1924, and Apr. 27, 1924, are printed in Foreign Relations, 1924, vol. ii, p. 688.