893.113/607

The Ambassador in Brazil ( Morgan ) to the Secretary of State

No. 2107

Sir: I have the honor to report that on the receipt of the Department’s unnumbered instruction of October 17th last, I informed the Brasilian Foreign Office of the fact that the Government of the United States had signified its approval of the terms of the embargo on the shipment of arms and munitions of war to China, [Page 616] and that it expressed the hope that in view of the importance of unanimity upon this question, the Brasilian Government would see its way to instruct its representative at Pekin of its approval of the terms of the embargo and the interpretative note, and of its readiness to give its formal assent thereto upon there being substantial unanimity of action among the Powers represented in China.

Under date of November 17th last, the Minister of Foreign Affairs addressed to this Embassy a note, a copy of the text and of a translation of which I have the honor to enclose,48 in which he stated that in August last, in answer to an inquiry, the Brasilian Foreign Office notified the British Embassy in this capital that the Brasilian Government preferred to abstain from any agreement relating to the matter because it was not directly interested therein, seeing that no commerce in the export of arms and munitions of war to China is carried on from Brasil, and because this country did not participate in the Washington Conference, which formulated the resolutions which were adopted in October last by the Pekin foreign diplomatic Body.

However, the Brasilian Foreign Office has stated to the British Foreign Office that it would continue to follow sympathetically the attitude of the signatories of the Washington Conference, and that it would repeat its previous instructions to its representative in Pekin, which were favorable to the action taken by the Pekin diplomatic Body, in relation to an embargo on the shipment of arms and munitions of war to China.

I have [etc.]

Edwin V. Morgan
  1. Not printed.