681.11212/11
The Acting Secretary of State to the Diplomatic Agent and Consul General at Tangier (Blake)
Sir: The Department has received and studied your despatch of March 13, 1930,6 concerning the Vizirial Decree requiring that metal containers of imported canned foodstuffs be stamped with indications of the country of origin. For the present and until the Decree in question and the General Decree of October 14, 1914, have been submitted to this Government and have received its sanction, the Department feels that you should maintain your position that these Decrees shall not be made to apply to American ressortissants.
[Page 741]Although the Department does not at this time wish to express any opinion as to the attitude which it may take with regard to giving sanction to the Decrees in question, you should perhaps know of the action which the Department took in 1928 relative to the French requirement that certain canned products being imported into France must have embossed or embedded on the cans an indication in the French language of the country of origin. There is enclosed, for your information, a copy of a portion of a note presented to the French Foreign Office in January 1929,7 in which this question is discussed. The French Government has taken no action on this request. The Department realizes that the situation in Morocco is quite different from that existing in France but it is not impossible that the French authorities in the French Zone may offer to change the Decree in question in such a way as to meet the Department’s request as contained in the portion of the note presented in January 1929.
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