No. 348.
Mr. Frelinghuysen to Mr. Foster.
Washington, March 12, 1884.
Sir: The Department is in receipt of a despatch from our consul-general at Havana, setting forth the variety and extent of annoyance and injury attendant, in Cuba, upon the manner in which the laws and regulations concerning passports are there carried out, and, so far as this condition of things affects American citizens, you are desired to make urgent representations to His Catholic Majesty’s Government. The Government of the United States requires no passports of foreigners coming here; but is not for that reason disposed to object in any wise to the just or supposed proper requirements of other Governments in this regard, nor has it done so. The position of the United States, in either aspect above, or in both combined, would seem to be such as to entitle it to a very careful and considerate hearing when it ventures, as it now does, to bring to the attention of a central Government a catalogue of annoyances, vexations, and injuries, visited by the quite unnecessarily loose or more blamable methods of the local officials of that Government, upon all our citizens visiting the island, indiscriminately. This Government now brings no reflection on the requirement of a visé on the passport given its citizens, or the charge therefor, any more than on the requirement of the passports themselves, but only on the methods in vogue with reference to its affix. The failure to obtain a visé involves, in the first place, a certain fixed penalty; but no pains are taken to acquaint the visitor that his failure so involves a penalty, while the neglect to demand a passport in many instances, and the omission to visé the same, when it is demanded, in many others, are well calculated to suggest to the visitor the non-necessity of such an act. It is when he is about to leave the island that he discovers the infirmities consequent on the absence of the visé, which should have been required on his arrival. He now finds that he cannot leave the island until his passport has been visaed at the port where he entered, which may be hundreds of miles distant, and to be reached only by a weekly steamer. Sometimes a new passport, obtained of the consul-general at an expense of $5, visaed at a further expense of $4.25, is allowed to remove the hindrance to his departure, but not always, and the new passport in that case, it is declared, must be sent to the port of landing for a visé. Cases arise where, the steamer sailing at 4 p.m., the visitor is told by official clerks on whom he calls at 2 p.m., that he must come at 3 p.m., and this when these clerks are idle.
Again American money has been refused for these charges, though worth 10 per cent, more than Spanish gold; but this is mentioned, not as indicating any disposition to criticise the right of the officials to require payment in the national funds or moneys, only as (in the view of the consul-general) an unnecessary refusal under the circumstances.
It may be, of course, contended that ignorance of the law on the part of our citizens is no valid excuse for neglecting to ask for and procure the necessary visé, and that our own steamship companies (where these are the carriers) should find it their pleasure, if not their interest, to make these requirements respecting visé known to the public. It remains nevertheless true that it should lie within the execution [Page 483] of the passport law of His Majesty’s Government on the Island to reduce by judicious means, these annoyances and injuries to an almost inappreciable quantity and this Government has a natural right to expect that no American citizen shall in any case be prevented from returning to his home, at his own free will, by the simple neglect of any Cuban officer whatever to do his official duty.
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Commending the matter to your usual judicious attention, I am, sir, &c.,