File No. 125.0055/4
The Belgian Minister (Havenith) to the
Secretary of State
[Translation]
No. 898]
Washington,
February 13, 1915.
[Received February 15.]
Mr. Secretary of State: By a note dated
January 25 last your excellency was so good as to acquaint me with the
text of a telegram embodying the answer of the American Government to
the German Government’s notice to the neutral powers of its intention to
cancel the exequaturs issued by the Belgian Government to the foreign
consuls.
I am instructed by the King’s Government and have the honor to forward
herewith to your excellency a copy of the German Government’s
[Page 920]
reply1 to the Belgian Government’s protest together with
a copy of another note from the Belgian Government which the Spanish
Government kindly undertook to deliver at Berlin.
I embrace this opportunity [etc.]
[Enclosure—Translation]
The Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
to the
German Foreign Office
Note Verbale
Germany claimed, in her communication of December 5, that the
occupant of an invaded country had the right to regard as “annulled”
all exequaturs previously issued to consuls in office by the lawful
power of that country.
The claim is untenable.
By reason of the character of the occupant’s power which flows from
mere possession and is in no wise final, Article 43 of the fourth
convention of The Hague sanctions, in principle, the continuance of
civil and administrative laws and, consequently, of existing
conditions.
It is idle for Germany to invoke, in her note of January 3, military
and administrative considerations. These both may justify the
withdrawal of the exequatur of a consul who should indulge in
hostile acts or behave in a manner inconsistent with the duties of
his office. But they can not warrant either a general right of
cancellation as claimed by Germany nor her assuming to upset the
whole consular organization to reduce the number of consuls to three
for each nation and to bar from consulates, on the sole ground that
they are Belgians, men who have committed no act antagonistic to
military interests and honestly acknowledged the occupant’s rights
as defined by The Hague convention.
The German proposition, if accepted, would carry the consequence of
throwing into a state of disastrous uncertainty the consulates
established in parts that are occupied one day and retaken the
next.
