835.51B861/100: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Argentina (Weddell)
109. The Foreign Bondholders Protective Council has complained to this Department, and has sent a telegram of protest to the “Finance Ministers of Argentina and of the Province of Buenos Aires”, that the proposed settlement of the Province’s external sterling bonds is more favorable than the settlement with respect to dollar bonds recently proposed to the Council. According to the Council, the British 3 to 3½ percent loan of 1906–1909 and the sterling 5 percent consolidation [Page 282] loan of 1915 will receive, respectively, a first and second charge on certain revenues of the Province which will be collected by the Federal Government under the law for unification of internal taxes; whereas other European loans (with the exception of the 4½ percent loan of 1910, which is separately secured on dividends of the Banco de la Provincia) and United States dollar loans will constitute only a third charge on such revenues.
Please make appropriate inquiries and if your investigation discloses that dollar issues of the Province are being discriminated against, you are authorized to take up the matter with the Foreign Office and request that the discrimination be removed.