Mexico and the Silver Agreement at the London World Economic Conference of 1933

The 1929 stock market crash on Wall Street acted as a detonator, setting off a generalized economic crisis. In the face of the damage to international trade, the destabilization of internal economies, and the growing instability of the international system, the Council of the League of Nations, the emblematic organization of the interwar period, approved the convening of a World Economic Conference in London that met beginning in June of 1933. Although the Conference was adjourned at the end of July, Mexico and other countries that were producers or users of silver were able to come to an agreement that would help to balance the market and raise the price of silver. Based upon this, the U.S. policy of silver seizure, shortly thereafter stimulated by the Silver Purchase Act, accelerated the Mexican recovery. As has already been pointed out by some studies, the benefits that Mexico obtained from the London accords and the silver program contributed substantially to the expansion of their monetary system and to the strengthening of their central bank, by replacing silver coins with notes backed by their new reserves (1935), all of this in the context of the crisis. But coming to this result was not so easy. For the directors of Mexican foreign policy, the Silver Agreement involved the implementation of an interesting preparatory diplomacy, realized in diverse geographic settings, with the end result of offering the Mexican delegation in London the best possible conditions to negotiate the agreement. The paper will examine the diplomatic action undertaken by Mexico to create the favorable conditions for the agreement.