611.1731/48

The Minister in Nicaragua (Lane) to the Secretary of State

No. 65

Sir: I have the honor to report that on receipt of the Department’s mail instruction No. 11 of January 4, 1934 (File No. 611.1731/40 [46]) I called on the then Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Franklin Springer, on January 12, and enquired whether he had yet received from the Nicaraguan Chargé d’Affaires in Washington a copy of the Department’s memorandum of January 4, regarding the possibility of concluding a reciprocal trade agreement between the United States and Nicaragua. On being informed by Mr. Springer that he had not as yet received a copy, I made such a copy available to him. An appointment was then made for me to discuss the question with Mr. Springer on January 18, he having previously told me that President Sacasa desired him to initiate the conversations with me immediately.

When I called, however, on Mr. Springer on January 18, he said that in view of the forthcoming early return of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Doctor Léonardo Argüello, he (Mr. Springer) preferred not to initiate conversations on his own part prior to the return of his immediate superior. He stated, however, that he would consult with the Minister of Hacienda at once and have all the available material ready for the consideration of Doctor Argüello, on the latter’s return from Montevideo.

Doctor Argüello, having returned to Managua yesterday afternoon, received me this morning by appointment. I had informed him, when I met him at Corinto on January 22, on the occasion of the departure of my family for the United States, that I should like to converse with him as soon as possible on the above-mentioned subject. When I called on him today, he said that no report had yet been received from the Chargé d’Affaires in Washington and that he had not yet had time to study the matter carefully since his arrival in Managua. He [Page 499] promised me that he would give the matter his careful attention and would communicate with me as soon as he was in a position to discuss the situation.

I am, therefore, not able to state whether the Minister for Foreign Affairs is prepared to proceed with the suggested conversations “along the general lines indicated in the memorandum.”

It would be helpful to me, in such conversations as may later materialize, to have memoranda, exchanges of notes or other documents which were presumably prepared in connection with negotiations which the Department, so I understand, recently undertook with Colombia and other countries so that I might have an understanding of the Department’s general point of view. It would be of help, furthermore, if the Department would inform me specifically what is meant, on page three of the memorandum addressed to the Nicaraguan Chargé d’Affaires, by “other generally recognized exceptions” and “national treatment with respect to internal taxes on all products.”

I should be grateful to the Department, therefore, if it would send me at its convenience an amplifying instruction so that I may be in a position correctly to interpret its attitude to the Nicaraguan Government.

Respectfully yours,

Arthur Bliss Lane