FOREIGN RELATIONS, 19 4 2, VOLUME VI



811.20 Defense (M)/7415
The Guatemalan Minister for Foreign Affairs (Salazar) to the Ameri-
            can Minister in Guatemala (Des Portes) 30

                           [Translation]

No. 7719                                GuATEMALA, June 18, 1942.
  MR. MINISTER: I have the honor to refer to the aide-me'moire which
Your Excellency was so good as to transmit the 10th of June, relative
to the possible development and exportation to the United States of
rubber existing in the forests of the republic.
  In order to reply to Your Excellency I first addressed the Ministry
of Agriculture so that they might furnish the statistical information
or approximate calculations on the production of rubber and its cost.
  I have today received from the Minister of Agriculture the informa-
tion which I take pleasure in transcribing to Your Excellency and
which textually reads as follows:
  [Here follows report from the Minister of Agriculture on rubber
production and costs.]
  With regard to the contract which the Government of the United
States desires to be signed by this Government of Guatemala with
the Rubber Reserve Company, I must state to Your Excellency,
with especial instructions of the President of the Republic, that
this Government is willing to deliver to the Government of the
United States or to the person or entity which the Government of
the United States designates, all the rubber production which may
be gathered in the forests of Guatemala, without limitation except
the quantity necessary to satisfy the small industries of the country.
The Government is disposed to obligate itself, because it has dictated
a law by which the Government is the only one who can buy rubber
from persons engaged in its extraction, without other conditions
than the willing and cooperative offer of the President of the Repub-
lic to deliver the Guatemalan rubber production to the Government
of the United States in order that this (Government) take advantage
of it as it sees fit.
  The cost of production is not the same in the various groves of
the Republic, because there are no planned plantings of the trees
producing rubber, since they are found in a wild state in the interior
of the forests and there is a great difference in the effort, work and
cost of the rubber obtained from the accessible forests in the nearby
departments and the rubber which is gathered in the heart of the
distant and solitary forests in the Department of the Pet6n. How-

  30 Copy transmitted to the Department by the Minister in Guatemala in his
despatch No. 2988, June 19; received June 23.



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