853.51/314: Telegram
The Minister in Portugal ( Dearing ) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 20—9 a.m.]
4. Department’s telegram 2, January 15, 5 p.m. Additional note from Foreign Office dated January 12th states decree was number 11388; was published in Diario Official [Diário do Govêrno] of January 8th and that the Portuguese Government’s decision of “last November” to pay principal and interest cannot be carried out without knowing who are holders of bonds, number of bonds held and where bonds are deposited, and requests that American holders deposit bonds in one place or in smallest number of places possible.
[Paraphrase.] All the decree does is to place the Portuguese Government in funds; it does not state specifically what will be done for the American holders of bonds, but it is published in the Diário do Govêrno like other decrees and is neither more nor less binding than those Department mentioned. [End paraphrase.]
Text in its essential part is:
“There is opened in the Ministry of Finance and in its favor, a special credit in the amount of 20 million escudos ‘to defray expenses of whatever order or character, that must be incurred either within the country or abroad, for the immediate repurchase of the outstanding balance of obligations of the four and a half percent loans of 1891–1896 (tobacco)’.”
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