[Enclosure—Translation]
The Spanish Minister of State (Zulueta) to the
American Ambassador (Laughlin)
Excellency:
My Dear Sir: I have the honor to
acknowledge the receipt of Your Excellency’s kind memorandum of
the first of this month,11 in which
you were so good as to state that the Government of the United
States, in authorizing unconditional most favored nation
treatment to products originating in Spain, is unable to accept
on the part of Spain any other treatment than that which is
analogous and general, since this concession, as far as it
concerns the United States, is derived from the provisions
established by American legislation.
At the same time Your Excellency states that his Government is
unable to accept the proposal that the negotiations, either
concerning the desires formulated by the United States or the
petitions made on the part of Spain, should take place
simultaneously in Washington.
In reply to the memorandum referred to, I have the honor to make
known to Your Excellency that the legal provisions in Spain, in
accordance with those established by the decree of December 23,
1931, published in the Gaceta of the
24th, of which Your Excellency assuredly has knowledge, and the
provisions of which were communicated by our Chargé d’Affaires
in Washington to the Undersecretary of State, Mr. Castle, on the 12th of January
last, prohibit the general concession of most favored nation
treatment, and in accordance [Page 538] with these regulations the Hispano-Italian
Commercial Agreement was recently concluded, and there are in
course of negotiation at the present moment other negotiations
with different countries. That which I have set forth, I hope,
will convince Your Excellency of the legal difficulty on the
part of Spain to concede to the United States, in spite of its
ardent desire, a general treatment of greater favor, and which
if conceded would result in prejudice to other countries which
have negotiated or are negotiating conventions with Spain on the
basis indicated. I must, however, call the attention of Your
Excellency to the fact that the Government of the Republic is
disposed to concede in practice, and disregarding the question
of principle, most favored nation treatment and the greatest
benefits granted by Spain to other countries, to all such
articles as may be of interest to the United States, leaving, as
has been proposed, to the Government represented by Your
Excellency the care of submitting the list of those products for
which the said treatment is requested, and, adding, as an
expression of the good-will animating the Spanish Government,
that the latter is disposed to agree to the commitment that, if
hereafter, the Government of the United States may find any
product of interest to its exports which shall not have been
included in the list it may, at any time formulate its desire
that the product in question be included among those that enjoy
the benefits of most favored nation treatment. I, therefore,
desire again to indicate to Your Excellency the good-will
animating this Government in its intercourse with the United
States and the concessions it is disposed to make in order to
reconcile the desires that Your Excellency expresses with the
formal regulations of Spanish legislation.
With the same purpose, the Government of the Republic is disposed
to agree that separate negotiations may be carried on, based on
the requests of the United States and those that relate to the
desires formulated by Spain, though the proposal that joint
negotiations of both points should be carried on had been made
by the Spanish Government with a desire to facilitate and
expedite the conclusion of the negotiations in progress, and,
therefore, in agreeing to the separation of the two discussions
in conformity with the desire expressed by the Government of the
United States the Government of Spain hopes that the requests
that have been made by it to the Government of Your Excellency
will be adjusted in the most advantageous manner possible for
the Spanish products mentioned therein, inasmuch as the
unfavorable commercial balance of Spain in its trade relations
with the United States greatly affects its national economic
situation.
I avail [etc.]
