812.5200 Cunningham Investment Co./53

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Mexico ( Daniels )

No. 1182

Sir: Reference is made to your despatch No. 3066 of November 21, 1935,4 with which was transmitted a copy of a reply addressed to you by the Mexican Agrarian Department in response to your letter of August 19, 1935, inquiring in regard to the arrangements that might have been made for the payment of adequate compensation for lands expropriated from the Cunningham Investment Company. In this communication the Agrarian Department advised you that as regulations had not up to that time been issued in the matter of compensation for ejidal expropriations, it was not possible to furnish you the information you had requested.

In your despatch No. 3067 of November 22, 1935,5 you reported a conversation with the then Undersecretary of State in the course of which Mr. Ceniceros asked that the beforementioned letter from the Agrarian Department be disregarded and that certain statements which had been given to the New York Times by the President of Mexico, in which the latter was reported to have declared that land taken for distribution was being paid for in sound bonds, and that his Government was pledged to the discharge of this indebtedness, should be considered as reflecting the true policy of the Mexican Government in the premises. Mr. Ceniceros also requested that the Government of the United States refrain from pressing the matter further until after January 1, 1936.

By its instruction NoN. 1057 of April 1, 1936,4 the Department directed you to take the matter up again with the Mexican Government and your despatch No. 3483 of April 16, 1936, reported that you had complied with these instructions, both orally and in writing. However, [Page 695] the Department has not up to the present received any indication that a response has been made by the Mexican authorities to the representations contained in your note No. 1582 of the latter date.

It is, therefore, desired that the matter again be brought urgently to the attention of the appropriate Mexican authorities, and it is the Department’s well considered opinion that additional force would be lent to your representations if the Embassy were simultaneously to renew its efforts to obtain the information already requested concerning the compensation of Mr. M. F. Bauchert, the Cunningham Investment Company, Mr. Harloe Hamilton and other American citizens whose lands were the subject of recent expropriation.

The Department awaits with interest the receipt of a report concerning the action you may take in pursuance of this instruction.

Very truly yours,

For the Secretary of State:
R. Walton Moore