Extract From a Press Release Issued by the Department of State on May 9, 193034
The text of a statement by the Department of State, together with a despatch dated April 21, 1930, from the American Ambassador to Cuba, and a summary of a full report transmitted with the despatch in question regarding the claim of Joseph E. Barlow to certain property in Cuba, follow:
Statement by the Department of State
The American Ambassador to Cuba has filed with the Department a report on the Joseph E. Barlow claim.
This case involves a claim to possession and title to a certain tract of swamp land, largely undeveloped, in the city of Habana. There are conflicting claims to title and the land has been the subject of litigation in Cuba for over eleven years. The conflicting claims grow out of questions of priority of grant and the meaning of certain conveyances and maps under Cuban law, for Cuban law must govern Cuban titles. The questions are complicated. This Department has not passed and does not now pass on the final merits of the respective claims to title.
The Ambassador’s report shows that Mr. Barlow has not exhausted the legal remedies available in Cuba. Such a condition, under international law, must generally speaking be fulfilled before a case between private parties becomes a matter for diplomatic interposition. Mr. Barlow has claimed a right to immediate possession of these lands under a court order obtained in 1917 in an ex parte proceeding to which neither the Cuban claimant who disputes Mr. Barlow’s possessory right nor his predecessors in title were parties. Such a proceeding, according to an opinion of the Cuban Supreme Court does not constitute proof of possessory rights. The Cuban superior courts consistently refused to recognize this court order as giving Mr. Barlow right to possession.
Mr. Barlow still has legal remedies open to him in Cuba. Mr. Barlow has, however, frequently expressed the belief that the Cuban courts are prejudiced against him for personal reasons. The Department felt that without going into that question his objections on this point could be met by a plan of private arbitration before a neutral tribunal which, though not a part of the Cuban court [Page 698] system, would nevertheless decide the controversy according to Cuban law. Such a plan was prepared by the American Ambassador to Cuba and has been approved by the Department.35 It was designed to be fair to both parties to the controversy and to expedite the ending of the dispute. Neither Mr. Barlow nor the Cuban title claimant could be forced to arbitrate, nor would the Department take a position to force them. Either may stand on his rights to have the case adjudicated in the Cuban courts, but if both parties should approve the plan of arbitration it would dispose of the controversy expeditiously and finally and more cheaply than could be otherwise done. If the Cuban claimant accepted the arbitration it would show that he had confidence in his ability to support his claim before a neutral tribunal. If Mr. Barlow declined to arbitrate, it would tend to show that he did not desire to proceed in the orderly process which the Department so much commends for the settlement of international difficulties. The Cuban claimant agreed to the arbitration. Mr. Barlow emphatically declined and stated he did not regard the arbitration as fair. The Department differs with him in that regard.
In the present position the Department does not feel that any action in regard to Mr. Barlow’s claim would be now appropriate.
- Reprinted from Department of State, Press Releases, Weekly Issue No. 32, May 10, 1930, p. 226. The portion of the press release not reprinted here is the despatch of April 21, 1930, from the Ambassador in Cuba, and the summary of the full report transmitted with that despatch.↩
- See Department of State, Press Releases, Weekly Issue No. 20, February 15, 1930, pp. 61 ff.↩