No. 238.
Mr. Washburne to Mr. Fish.
Legation of
the United States,
Paris
,
July 24, 1874.
(Received August 6.)
No. 1004.]
Sir: Sometime since I learned, through Mr. George
Bemis, who was coming from Italy into France, that the police at the
frontier were in the habit of demanding passports from Americans, while
Englishmen were permitted to pass without any demand for their passports. I
at once addressed a letter to the Duke Decazes, calling his attention to
this fact, and particularly to the fact that passports were required of
Americans and not of Englishmen. Before writing to the duke I had spoken to
him on the subject, and he expressed his surprise at the existence of such a
state of things, and promised that it should at once be remedied. He
intervened promptly with the minister of the interior, and the result was a
notice in the “Journal Officiel,” a copy of which I inclose herewith.
I also send a notice from the.” Journal Officiel,” in regard to the
emigration which has taken place to the United States from France. I would
like to be advised, for my own information, whether there is any truth in
the reports thus put forth by the French government, that there is
dissatisfaction among the French emigrants in Philadelphia or elsewhere in
the United States.
I have, &c.,
[Inclosure 1 in No.
1004.—Translation.]
[From
the “Journal Officiel” of July 15, 1874.]
ministry of the interior.
Since the 4th July last the formality of passports has been dispensed
with between France and the United States of America; consequently
American citizens are free to enter French territory and travel thereon
on the simple declaration of their name and their nationality, and with
this reservation, also imposed upon other countries, that the traveler
shall be able to furnish, upon every requisition of the agents of French
police, the proof, by whatever title, of their identity and their
nationality.
[Inclosure 2 in No.
1004.—Translation.]
[From
the “Journal Officiel,” July 15, 1874.]
On several occasions agricultural laborers and others have been warned
not to make engagements as emigrants without having previously given
information to the administration at Paris, Havre, Belfort, Bordeaux,
Marseilles, at the commissioners specially charged with superintendence
of immigration and in the departments of the prefecture and
sous-prefectures.
It seems expedient to renew these recommendations in view of the numerous
demands of repatriation (repatriement) at the expense of the state,
addressed to several of our agents abroad, especially at Philadelphia,
(United States,) where many French, particularly Alsatians and natives
of Lorraine, having chosen French nationality, have been far from
reaping the advantages which the emigrant-recruiting officers had caused
them to hope.
