611.5331/149
The Minister in Portugal (Caldwell) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 19.]
Sir: Referring to the Department’s instruction No. 118 of July 24, 1935,16 enclosing a memorandum of a conversation with the Portuguese Minister in Washington, I have the honor to report that when I made the customary call at the Foreign Office on my return from my recent leave of absence in the United States, I found at once that from the local point of view the commercial question in which officials were primarily interested was the possibility of regaining the lost market for sardine shipments to the United States.
Mr. Luiz Teixeira de Sampaio, Secretary General of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, who is in temporary charge of the Ministry during the absence of the Minister for Foreign Affairs in Geneva, raised on his own initiative the old problem of flag discrimination, saying that he was giving earnest attention to a possible solution of this question and, more between the lines than from any specific statement, gave me the impression that such a solution might not be unduly difficult.
On the other hand, he spoke with evident feeling of the grave difficulties in which the Portuguese sardine industry was placed during the course of the past year by the sudden and unexpected exclusion of Portuguese sardines from the American market on account of their high lead content. He went on to say that the interruption of this trade, in an article which is among the few which Portugal can [Page 669] possibly sell to the United States, has tended to weaken still more the already unfavorable balance of trade between Portugal and the United States and, from the point of view of Portugal, had lessened the value of commercial exchanges almost to the vanishing point.
I replied to Mr. Sampaio, as I have done on previous occasions in the past, that the policy being pursued by the United States with regard to the lead content of sardines was, as he knew, non-discriminatory and non-commercial in character and was, on the other hand, based entirely on important considerations of public health. I went on to express the hope that improvements which I understood to be taking place in methods of curing and packing sardines might soon make possible a resumption of previous shipments. Mr. Sampaio replied that such improvements were taking place but that they would naturally require time, in the meantime leaving the commercial situation on a precarious footing.
While the Foreign Office thus undoubtedly understands that the policy of the United States in this respect is based entirely on considerations of public health, this explanation is, naturally enough, one to which no reference is likely to be made in the public Press and, for that reason, is not understood or appreciated by the general public which sees little difference between the exclusion of sardines from France on protective grounds and that referred to above from the United States. There are rumors here, for which I am chiefly indebted to a prominent newspaper man whom I have usually found reliable and well informed, that, on account of general dissatisfaction with the commercial results of his policy, the Minister of Commerce, who is at present on leave, is likely to be removed before the end of his vacation and to be replaced by a successor who may at least appear to attempt to enforce more vigorous policies.
Respectfully yours,
- Not printed; it merely transmitted a copy of the memorandum of July 16, by the Assistant Chief of the Division of Western European Affairs, supra.↩