653.116/47
The Chargé in Portugal ( Andrews ) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 2.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to copies of Notes to the Foreign Office from the Legation and the British Embassy here, transmitted to the Department among enclosures with despatches dated from November, 1926, to October 11, 1928, inclusive, on the subject of flag discrimination by the Portuguese Government in favor of Portuguese vessels against foreign.
For convenient reference copies of these Notes are enclosed herewith,24 with also a copy of a memorandum by Minister Dearing giving the Legation’s latest information as to the attitude of the Portuguese Foreign Office in the matter.
These Notes show the quality of action taken by the Legation and by Great Britain, the chief maritime Power. The Notes from [Page 787] other interested Missions, copies of which were also supplied the Department in Legation despatches, approximately resembled the British notes.
The Notes to the Foreign Minister that constituted the last united effort made by diplomatic representatives here (my despatch No. 2281 of May 4, 1928) following the meeting called by the then British Ambassador on April 17, 1928, either did not emphasize, or merely incidentally mentioned the port charges and dues, the only exception being the Note I sent based on the Department’s Instructions. The others present at the conference without exception declared themselves fairly well satisfied with the changes in port charges and dues effected by the Portuguese Government in its Decrees of December 1927.
The Note which the British Chargé d’Affaires has just sent under instruction of his Government, a copy of which I forwarded to the Department on October [11] 1928 (and again herewith),25 takes the Department’s and Legation’s point of view that the alterations of last December leave, in effect, the discrimination as bad as ever. The Chargé sent copies of this Note to all the Missions that had taken part last spring without (as in the case of his Note of a few weeks earlier on the port clearance of damaged vessels) inviting the making of similar protest. He merely in this instance sent copies, which amounts, however, to a tacit invitation.
Thus finally the leading maritime nation has come around to the American opinion, and has some five months afterwards protested to the Portuguese Government in the matter of the port charges and dues. This adhesion ought considerably to increase the chances for a real correction of the port discriminations as well as of those by Customs rebates.
It is interesting that this recent British Note makes no mention of the bounty (2.45 Escudos per ton) paid to Portuguese ship owners on coal imported in Portuguese bottoms (plus the 10% rebate).
To put it plainly, the Decrees the Portuguese Government promulgated last December were a very clever fraud perpetrated on the interested diplomatic officers. The changes effected presented superficially a seeming considerable abatement of the discriminations, whereas in reality, in the actual working, the changed or new regulations constitute in sum total discriminations as bad, or almost as bad, as before. As for the other flag discriminations, the Customs rebates on goods and the bounty on coal carried in Portuguese bottoms—to which latter the other Powers, and particularly the British, took strong exception—these remain unaltered.
I have [etc.]