611.5231/551

The Spanish Minister of State for Foreign Affairs ( Estella ) to the American Ambassador ( Hammond )60

[Translation]
No. 262

Excellency: Dear Sir: In your note No. 371, of October 26, 1927, Your Excellency is good enough to propose, by virtue of instructions from your Government, an indefinite extension of the existing commercial regime between Spain and the United States, subject, of course, to a denouncement, which might be for three months, in view of the fact that on the 27th of November of the present year the six months term fixed by the Royal Decree of June 27th last, expires, which date Your Excellency mentions doubtless in error, since the true date is the 25th of May last, which granted to the products of your country most favored nation treatment.

Your Excellency bases this proposal upon the impossibility of your Government giving a complete and detailed reply before the 27th of November to my Note of August 31st last, in which I again requested that before the negotiation of a new commercial treaty, the various points at issue be solved or satisfactorily explained, which affect the importation and commerce of certain Spanish products in the United States and which I mentioned in another note directed to Your Excellency under date of June 24th last,61 such as the question of the Almeria grapes, oranges and lemons, tomatoes, chestnuts and hazelnuts, preserved peppers, and short firearms; which impossibility is due to the fact that Dr. Kisliuk has not yet completed the mission entrusted to him by your Government, to investigate the sanitary condition of the grape production in the Province of Almeria and which, at my request, was extended to include a similar investigation of the Canary Island tomatoes.

Replying to the above-mentioned note, I have the honor to inform Your Excellency, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, that the latter, taking into consideration the reasons mentioned by Your Excellency, agrees to continue provisionally the application to the products of the United States from the 27th of November of the [Page 733] present year, most favored nation treatment, as was granted thereto by the Royal Decree of May 25th last, which regime will cease upon three months denunciation or upon the conclusion of a new commercial treaty between Spain and the United States.

I avail myself [etc.]

Marqués de Estella
  1. Copy transmitted to the Department by the Ambassador in Spain as an enclosure to his despatch No. 609, Nov. 8, 1927; received Nov. 21.
  2. Not printed.