833.24/1199
The Ambassador in Uruguay (Dawson) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 12.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to the Department’s Confidential Instruction No. 2017 of May 13, 1944,64 advising the Embassy of the successful steps taken by the Department to obtain an increase of 100 tons per month in the newsprint quota for Uruguay and explaining the Department’s recent action with respect to the implementation of newsprint distribution in Uruguay as having been taken for the purpose of relieving the Embassy of all responsibility for and participation in this distribution.
In accordance with the instructions from the Department, the Embassy announced the increased newsprint quota in a letter to the Asociación Gráfica del Uruguay, the organization which, as the Department knows, represents in its membership most of the principal Uruguayan newspapers and periodicals. The communication clearly stated that the increase would be reflected in the distributions made by the Canadian suppliers and that it was hoped that the increase would become effective at the beginning of the third quarter of 1943 [1944]. The communication added that any details related to the increase in the quota should be referred by the Asociación Gráfica del Uruguay or by its individual members directly to the representatives in Montevideo of Canadian suppliers.
The Embassy has the pleasure of advising the Department that the action of the Department has met with a spontaneous and grateful response from the Montevideo press. Practically all the local newspapers mentioned the matter of the increase and, in calling the attention of their readers to this new gesture of friendship on the part of [Page 1617] our government, emphasized the importance of such a decision in the midst of the serious newsprint supply situation in the United States and Canada and in the face of the restrictions now being imposed upon the consumers of newsprint in those countries.
In line with the Department’s latest instruction under reference, the Embassy is continuing to refrain from any participation in the local distribution of newsprint. Upon the receipt of the Department’s earlier instruction the Embassy permitted it to become generally known among consumers of newsprint that, in the future, all supply problems should be directed to the local representatives of the Canadian suppliers. Since that time practically no complaints have been brought to the Embassy. The Department will undoubtedly recognize with the Embassy that, in the case of serious delays in newsprint arrivals, in individual cases of newsprint shortages, and in other urgent situations in newsprint supply, the Embassy, during the emergency, will probably always be the point of final appeal. However, every effort will be made to disclaim any responsibility for such situations, and the Embassy will make it clear that any intervention on its part will only be that of a transmittal agency bringing the emergency to the attention of the proper authorities for remedial action.
The Embassy is able to advise the Department that the Department’s recent action with regard to newsprint distribution has until now been most successful in relieving the Embassy of the continual consideration of unpleasant problems related to this distribution.
Respectfully yours,
Commercial Attaché
- Not printed.↩