No. 384.
Mr. Thompson to Mr.
Bayard.
Legation of
the United States,
Port-au-Prince,
Hayti, October 26, 1885.
(Received Nov. 10.)
No. 47.]Sir: According to instructions received in dispatch
No. 4, of the date of June 15, 1885, from the Department, I have on sundry
occasions approached the honorable secretary of state, Mr. Brutus St.
Victor, with regard to the reclamation of Mrs. Evan Williams and that of
Mrs. Isabella Fournier. I had several interviews with him, besides having
addressed to him dispatches relative to these claims. On each occasion in
his replies he stated the same thing, and on one occasion tried to impress
it upon my mind that these ladies were Haytians, not Americans. Therefore on
the 12th instant I addressed to him the inclosed dispatch, the response to
which, herein inclosed, has just come to me before the closing of the
mail.
Neither in my dispatches nor my conversations have I at any time admitted as
a criterion the decisions allowed by my colleagues concerning like claims.
On every occasion when he alluded to their action I have refrained from
making any reply whatever.
The honorable secretary admits that those ladies held title deeds, and that
no legal proceedings had dispossessed them, yet refuses to acknowledge their
losses to be actual. He quotes the fact concerning Mrs. Williams that in
1875, by the death of her father, she came in possession of a certain amount
of the real estate left by him, and contends that she would never have done
so only she again considers herself a Haytian, as foreigners are not allowed
to hold land in Hayti, also adding that the Government has not time to hunt
up persons holding defective title-deeds. None of these arguments would I
admit; hence, as by the dispatch herewith inclosed, Mr. St. Victor informs
me that the subject of these claims will be sent to the Haytian
representative at Washington.
I think these two ladies have claims that, both by law and reason, are valid,
and have been unable to find, in any of Mr. St. Victor’s dispatches, or in
my conversations with him, any reason to lose that opinion.
I await, therefore, with interest, further instructions from the
Department.
I am, &c.,
[Page 541]
[Inclosure 1 in No. 47.]
Mr. Thompson to Mr.
St. Victor.
Legation of the United States,
Port-au-Prince, Hayti, October 12, 1885.
Sir: I find with regret that it is necessary
for me to again address your department with regard to the losses
sustained by my citizens, Mrs. Evan Williams and Mrs. Isabella Fournier.
There is no question of the losses being actual; these ladies are
Americans, and while being Americans their property was destroyed, hence
they desire redress for their losses.
I repeat, Mr. Minister, that in certain States of the United States of
America there are laws forbidding aliens to hold property, yet if they
do obtain real estate it is theirs and acknowledged such, unless due
legal proceedings be instituted dispossessing them; the foreigner has
right, therefore, to expect that amends be made for any injury thus
received, and undoubtedly so since the Government of a country is
responsible for any wrongs done by arbitrary and revolutionary
excitement. But it is useless, Mr. Minister, to continue the same
arguments I have already made and which your true sense of justice must
allow. I have been appealing to you by the express advice of my
Government, and unless I can have some satisfactory arrangement made
with these claims, knowing the feelings of my Government concerning
them, I must write to the Department of State at Washington and ask for
further instructions in the premises.
With the sincere wish that you will re-examine these cases from a legal
aspect, both of ancient and modern law, and influenced by the justice of
them, will try to bring them to a final settlement,
I am, &c.,
[Inclosure 2 in No.
47.—Translation.]
Mr. St. Victor to
Mr. Thompson.
Department of State of Foreign Relations,
Port-au-Prince, Hayti, October 26, 1885.
Mr. Minister: The resolution taken by your
legation to maintain the arguments that it has presented to my
department on the subject of the reclamations inadmissible by law of
Mrs. Evan Williams and Mrs. Isabella Fournier, persuades me that all
prolongation at Port-au-Prince of a discussion in which reproduced
continuously on your part the same reasons will be of no utility, in
view of the formal instructions of your Government.
The representative of the Republic at Washington will therefore be
charged to make, relatively to these reclamations, to the Government of
the Union communications which, in my opinion, will not fail to convince
it of the small foundation of the pretensions of these claimants.
However this may be, permit me to expose to you some points, which will
close the discussion between your legation and my department.
When the Haytian Government consented to admit the principle of an
indemnity in favor of foreigners who had experienced losses on the
occasion of the events of the 22d and 23d September, 1883, there could
only be a question about household goods. Madame Peloux, a French woman,
formulated a claim of the same nature as those in question, but she was
rejected for the reasons already given in my preceding dispatches. All
the foreign representatives, except the minister resident of the United
Staxes, have admitted this rule in Hayti, from which foreigners, not
being owners of real estate, cannot lose immovable goods. Madame Coby, a
French woman, had to undergo the same rule.
If the laws in Hayti prevent a foreigner from acquiring there, under
whatever title it may be, real estate, in the United States, if there
are similar laws, it seems clear to me that they should have the same
effects. A void title cannot serve to establish a right to ownership and
to reclaim the price of real estate lost—it is indispensable to prove
that ownership. The act of transferring of real estate which a foreigner
may have is inoperative, because of his being unable to acquire such. No
one, if he is not a Haytian, can, according to the constitution, be
owner of estates in Hayti under any title whatsoever, nor acquire any
immovables. Articles 450 and 479 of the civil code contain also this
prohibition.
If in certain States of the American Union there exists alongside of the
interdiction for a foreigner the right of possessing the power of
acquiring immovables, leaving with the Government the employment of
legal means to cancel the acquisition, it is not the same in Hayti,
where the laws are formal. The conclusion which I have
[Page 542]
drawn from this incapacity of acquiring is
so natural, so logical, that the drawers-up of the law which forbids
foreigners in the United States from acquiring there or possessing land
have not been able to escape therefrom. In fact, the following bill was
presented to the House of Representatives of the United States on the
25th of February, 1884; the report recommending it is of date January
20, 1885. I do not know whether it has been admitted by the Senate, but
it stipulates “that it be decreed by the Senate and the House of
Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
that no foreigner in the United States, and no other persons but
citizens of these States, or those who have legally declared their
intention to become citizens, can acquire titles to property or possess
any lands in the limits of the United States or their jurisdiction, and
that all acts transferring of property to their benefit shall be, after
the approbation of the present bill, void of effect.”
Here are the consequences resulting from the violation of our laws.
Accept, &c.,
