811.20 Defense (M) Spain/711c: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Consul General at Algiers (Wiley)
766. For Murphy. Your 308, March 134 and Department’s instruction 323 to Madrid of March 16. Your proposals have been studied by us. We have meant to indicate the maximum possibilities of trade between North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula in the program covered by our airmail instructions. The attainment of all of these maximum figures, we recognize, is not possible, but such figures are offered as a basis on which to negotiate. The program outlined in your 308 apparently bears close relation to trade arrangements in the past. In our opinion, the basis for initiating negotiations is not contained in such a program unless you have available information which indicates that our suggested quantities are not available or are not likely in the near future to become available. In the negotiations the figures contained in our airmail instructions should be used, although an agreement may eventually be reached for smaller quantities. North Africa is treated as one unit in our airmail instruction proposal. You have set up a separate basis in your 308 for Morocco, Algeria and French West Africa. No separate negotiations for trade program should be carried on with either Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco or West Africa, but rather you should consider the entire area as one entity. French West Africa is included in your 308, but our airmail instructions omitted this area. The inclusion of West Africa is agreeable to us, but has not been approved by the British as yet.
The inclusion of West Africa does not mean that we wish to add new items to the imports of French North Africa indicated in our airmail instructions, since all estimated quantities available of imports we desire are comprised in the imports there shown. The French West African exports to be added to our airmail instruction program are as follows:
| To Spain: | To Portugal: | ||
| 400 | tons gum arabic | 100 | tons gum arabic |
| 70 | tons gum copal | 20 | tons colanuts |
| 80 | tons colanuts | ||
With respect to specific commodities mentioned in your 308, please note the following comments:
[Here follows comment on the numerous commodities mentioned in telegram No. 308.]
In order that final instructions can be prepared, it is urged that you comment as quickly as possible on the proposals submitted to you. Please call this telegram to Butterworth’s35 attention upon his arrival.
[Page 32]Though a few changes in our airmail instructions will be forwarded to you shortly, these do not alter the facts to any great extent.
Please repeat to Lisbon, Madrid, Dakar and London as Department’s 700, 919, 126 and 2554 respectively.