611.2531/623: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Chile (Bowers)

15. Your 10, January 10, noon. Gazitúa presented yesterday the Spanish text of the general provisions as revised by the Treaty Commission. A rapid examination of the text reveals a number of changes or deletions from our proposals which are not acceptable. These include [Page 673] particularly elimination of national treatment in Article II, the changes in Articles III and IV, the elimination of Articles V, XI and XII, and the exceptions in Article XVI for bordering countries.6 Our position on some of these points is set forth in the memorandum of conversation7 enclosed with instruction 76 of December 29.8

In view of the considerable divergence between our general provision proposals and those of the Chilean Government, it would be desirable for Fowler to discuss with the appropriate officials the technical questions involved particularly in the Articles mentioned above, explaining in detail the reasons for our position.

With particular Reference to the exchange article, we are not yet prepared to present a new draft, but definitely cannot accept the Chilean proposal.

We hope to send you more detailed comment early next week by telegram.

Hull
  1. Article II concerned internal taxes; article III, quantitative restrictions; article IV, exchange controls; article V, monopolies and Government purchases; article XI, scheduled products subject to ad valorem rates; article XII, restrictions on importation of scheduled products; and article XVI, reservations regarding customs union, frontier traffic, advantages to dependencies, etc.
  2. Memorandum of December 19, 1939, Foreign Relations, 1939, vol. v, p. 436.
  3. Not printed.