811.20 Defense (M)/681

The Bolivian Minister ( Guachalla ) to the Secretary of State

Excellency: In the name of my Government I have the honor to express to Your Excellency the satisfaction with which it has viewed the signing of the contract between the Metals Reserve Company and certain producers of Bolivian tin for approximately 18,000 tons of fine tin yearly for a period of five years dating from the first of last July.

My Government is pleased fully to approve this agreement and to guarantee the performance of its terms on the part of the several signers thereof. The Government of Bolivia feels that this agreement has more than a purely commercial significance since for the first time it places the interchange between Bolivia and the United States on a basis of logical complementation in the plan of our continental economy. In the judgment of the Government of Bolivia the agreement signed today contains those elements which make its continuance highly to be desired, since to one of the parties it brings economic benefit and to the other it makes available a source of tin of strategic importance. It is therefore thought that in due course it will be found desirable to renew this agreement, adjusting if necessary its conditions in the light of changed circumstances, in the same spirit of equity and cooperation which has characterized the negotiations which have so happily been concluded. The signature of this contract marks the initial application of a wise and beneficial policy of inter-American solidarity and gives promise of even more auspicious understandings.

Accept [etc.]

Luis Guachalla