611.3531/112
The Ambassador in Argentina (
Bliss
) to the Secretary of
State
No. 1897
Buenos
Aires
, December 15, 1932.
[Received
December 27.]
Sir: I have the honor to enclose herewith a
copy of the note which I handed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs
yesterday afternoon in compliance with the Department’s telegraphic
instruction No. 79 of December 9, 3 p.m. The Minister being out of town
over the week-end, I was unable to see him until yesterday at the
regular weekly diplomatic reception.
I beg leave further to enclose a copy of the memorandum of my talk with
Dr. Saavedra Lamas from which it will be seen that he promised to give
careful study to the considerations of the American Government as set
forth in my note, and explained by me in more detail during our
conversation.
Respectfully yours,
[Enclosure 1]
The American Ambassador (
Bliss
) to the Argentine Minister for Foreign Affairs
(
Saavedra
Lamas
)
No. 850
Buenos
Aires
, December 10, 1932.
Excellency: In my note No. 845 of November
24 last, I had the honor to request that the reduction in certain
items of the Argentine tariff conceded in the modus vivendi recently signed between Your Excellency’s
Government and that of Chile be accorded in like manner to
importations into Argentina from the United States.
Therein I referred to a conversation had with Your Excellency the
same day in which I had pointed out that the said reductions were
not confined to imports from Chile but had already been accorded by
Your Excellency’s Government to the products of several other
countries than Chile under most-favored-nation clauses, not for
equivalent concessions, and that I therefore considered importations
from the United States were entitled to like treatment.
In reverting to our conversation, I beg to inform Your Excellency
that the extension of those favors to the three other Governments is
regarded by my Government as gratuitous within the meaning of
Article 3 in the treaty between our two countries of July 27, 1853.
These reductions, which have been extended to Great Britain, to
France and to Italy under the most-favored-nation clauses in the
treaties between those countries and Argentina, are not granted for
equivalent concessions on the part of the Governments of those three
countries and consequently like products of American origin are, in
[Page 694] the views of my
Government, entitled, under the above mentioned treaty between our
two countries, to the treatment accorded to the countries receiving
concessions by virtue of the most-favored-nation clause whether
conditional or unconditional.
In view of the foregoing, I have the honor to request again that
there be accorded to products of the United States imported into
Argentina the reductions in duty provided in the modus vivendi between Argentina and Chile.
I avail myself [etc.]
[Enclosure 2]
Memorandum by the American Ambassador (Bliss) of a Conversation
With the Argentine Minister for Foreign Affairs (Saavedra Lamas)
In calling on the Minister for Foreign Affairs at the weekly
diplomatic reception this afternoon, he at once started to talk of
the justification or non-justification of permitting goods to come
in under the provisions of the modus vivendi
with Chile which had been in transit at the time the agreement was
put into effect. He brought from his desk several large files on the
subject and read to me from them for a considerable time while
trying to find a decision made by Foreign Minister Bosch in 1931 in
reply to a reclamation which I had made to permit fresh fruit to
enter the country under conditions applying before the new tariff
rates had been put into effect by the Provisional Government.
Failing to find the particular communication he sought, he talked
theoretically on the subject for a considerable time, ending by
saying that the considerations I had set forth in my note on the
matter of the modus vivendi with Chile had
been referred to the Ministry of Hacienda, the question really being
one for decision of the customhouse authorities and that the
Ministry of Hacienda had not yet made its answer.
He expounded to me the reasons why he had decided to make the modus vivendi immediately applicable rather
than giving a period for its entering into effect, going over some
of the ground which he had covered in the Senate interpellation on
December 646 and
repeating other considerations he had expressed to me in our
previous talk.
After saying that I wished to call his attention to one phase of his
reference to the usage in the United States, he launched forth on
the subject again and it was ten minutes before I was able to
interrupt to say that I had no fault to find per se with the
statement he made in the Senate but that I wanted to observe that,
although it was the custom [Page 695]
for United States tariff laws to be put into effect as soon as
signed, importers always had an opportunity, sometimes lasting for a
period as long as two years, to present their cases to Congress and
that they were fully cognizant of what was to happen long before the
provisions of the bill went into effect. Consequently, importers of
goods into the United States were able to make their dispositions
accordingly, whereas the modus vivendi with
Chile had been negotiated without public knowledge of the terms and
immediately put into effect, giving no opportunity to importers to
make the necessary arrangements growing out of the application of
the changes in the tariff which the modus
vivendi involved.
After several attempts, I told the Minister that when I had talked
with him on the subject of the modus vivendi
and presented my note, I did so without instructions from my
Government; that I had since informed it fully of my action, and
that I was now instructed to present its views, which I explained to
him. He replied that the provisions of the modus
vivendi had been extended to like imports from Great
Britain, France and Italy because of the most-favored-nation clause
in Argentina’s treaties with those countries, to which I rejoined
that I perfectly understood this but that such being the case, my
Government considered this was a gratuitous action on the part of
Argentina which the United States was likewise entitled to enjoy.
After some further exchange of views, the Minister said he would
study my note with every consideration.
In the course of the conversation, the Minister again reverted to
what he had told me on several previous occasions, that unless Italy
and France agreed to an amicable readjustment of their commercial
treaties with Argentina as regards the most-favored-nation clause,
he had every intention of denouncing those treaties. He also told me
of the difficulties and annoyances which the study of commercial
questions and consequent interviews and discussions with commercial
organizations and business men gave him and that he had finally told
the President that in order to handle the pertinent questions
successfully it would be necessary to appoint a tariff commission,
asking if I could give him data concerning the creation and
composition of the United States Tariff Commission. I replied that I
would be glad to send him all information available at the
Embassy.
Before I took my leave, the Minister also reverted to what he had
brought up in other conversations, that the time was never so
propitious for the United States to obtain a preponderant influence
in South American countries, that with the change of government and
the inauguration of the Democratic Party’s regime, this opportunity
ought not to be lost in which the United States could dislodge Great
Britain. I at once stated that there was no desire on the part of my
[Page 696] Government nor of
American business men to dislodge England or anybody else from the
positions they might have obtained in the commerce of foreign
countries. That we did, of course, want to consolidate and increase
our markets and also to bring the peoples of the various South
American countries to the realization that the United States was
most friendlily disposed to them in every way and not inimical, as
was thought in a number of the continental republics.
Buenos Aires
,
December 14,
1932.
