711.532/6
The Minister in Portugal (Dearing) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 5.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to my despatch No. 2480 of December 19, 1928,26 requesting the Department to send me a draft of a Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Consular Rights to serve as a basis for negotiations with Portugal.
As I have reported to the Department in my despatch No. 2484 of December 28, 1928,26 the new Foreign Minister, Commander Meyrelles, is now in office and seems intelligent and kindly disposed. I called upon him on the 17th inst. and, in the course of the conversation covering all of the pending business between the Legation and the Foreign Office, I mentioned the interest that had been excited in the Department when Dr. Bettencourt Rodrigues had made a promise that national treatment would be accorded foreign vessels in Portuguese ports, saying that my Government had thought that this might open the way for the negotiation of a treaty. Commander Meyrelles disclosed at once that he was entirely of the opinion of his immediate predecessor. Commander Mesquita Guimaraes, the Minister of Marine and until recently acting Minister for Foreign Affairs, by saying that Dr. Bettencourt [Page 789] Rodrigues had promised much more than had been intended. He said the matter was still being studied, that two commissions were working upon it, and that it was always a question of first discovering how to recompense those interests which would be injured by the according of national treatment to foreign vessels. I pointed out the fact that national interests should take precedence over private ones, and expressed the hope that a way would soon be found to deal fairly with the private interests so that national treatment could be accorded. Dr. Meyrelles indicated quite clearly that he feared it would be a very long time before such a development could take place.
In this connection, I beg to say to the Department that on the occasion of my first call upon the new Foreign Minister on December 28, I was met as I left him by Alfredo da Silva, who was coming through his anteroom to call upon him. He is the chief of the shipping magnates who is opposed to granting any concessions to foreign vessels, and he was evidently losing no time in laying his case before the new Foreign Minister.
In view of what was said to me during my interview with Commander Meyrelles, I do not anticipate any early or favorable developments either in the matter of shipping charges or in the matter of the negotiation of a Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Consular Rights. I believe, nevertheless, that it would be advantageous for the Department to let me have a draft treaty for my own information and guidance. I left with the Foreign Minister, when I took my departure, copies of the treaties that have been celebrated with Germany, Esthonia and Hungary, and told the Minister that I was doing so merely so he could give the matter some thought and ponderation and that I should be glad to have his views in case he should later feel like expressing any. Here I shall let the matter of the treaty rest unless there is some new opening or unless the Department sees fit to instruct me to the contrary.
With regard to the shipping question, I expect to keep in touch with my colleagues and see what they intend to do. I called upon the British Ambassador a day or two ago but found him ill. My German colleague has also been ill, but I understand from my Dutch, Belgian, Norwegian and Italian colleagues that they are much disposed to adopt the point of view of the German Minister, Dr. von Baligand, that the diplomatic corps cannot take Dr. Bettencourt Rodrigues’ promise about national treatment and other concessions as being an irresponsible one, and that an obligation rests upon the Portuguese Government to go some way at least towards carrying out the promise of better conditions which was repeated and maintained throughout a period of practically two years without anything having been said by any responsible member of the Government to subtract from its effect.
I have [etc.]