[Inclosure in No.
136.—Translation.]
Extract from Message of President
Salomon.
Senators, Deputies: I feel a sentiment of real
satisfaction in announcing to you that our country has had cause to be
proud of the good will and justice of a great and powerful nation.
You will remember that the Pelletier and Lazare claims, the first
amounting to $2,466,480 as you will see by the document annexed to this
exposition, was submitted to the arbitration of the Hon. Judge W.
Strong, of the United States of America. The arbitrator’s decision
allowed to Pelletier the sum of $57,250 and to Lazaro that of $195,225
including interest.
[Page 629]
The three first heads of the Pelletier claim (confiscation of the vessel,
of the gold and silver found on board, damages done to his trade and to
his property) had been set aside, and the condemnation bore only on his
imprisonment, pronounced by a court which, according to the arbitrator
was not competent to judge. The decision recognized, however, the truth
of the facts brought against Pelletier and the infamy attached to the
crime he was accused of.
By order of my Government our advocates undertook to ask a revision of
the two judgments, that relative to Lazare, having granted damages to a
contractor who had failed in his engagements.
The cause of Hayti was just and was sustained with skill, and the
impartial spirit of the Hon. Thomas F. Bayard, Secretary of the
Department of State, dictated to him to range himself on our side, and
to decide the definitive and immediate rejection of these two
claims,
Hero is the conclusion of his report to the Senate, approved by the
President of the United States:
“But I do not hesitate to say that in my judgment the claim of Pelletier
is one which this Government should not press on Hayti, either by
persuasion or by force, and I come to this conclusion, first, because
Hayti had jurisdiction to inflict “on him the very punishment of which
he complains, such punishment being in noway excessive in view of the
heinousness of the offense; and, secondly, because his cause is of
itself so saturated with turpitude and infamy that on it no action,
judicial or diplomatic, can be based.”
After having shown the unjust foundation of the Lazare claim from the
fact that he had failed in his engagement in not having furnished the
funds that he had promised, the honorable Secretary of the Department of
State adds: “The claim, even supposing it is well founded, is based on a
speculation in Hayti into which Mr. Lazaro voluntarily entered.”
It remained to examine the possibility of a new examination of the merits
of these claims after the formal declaration of the President of the
United States, who in his annual message for 1885 announced the
conclusion of the arbitration and the decision rendered.
The Hon. Thomas F. Bayard saw no impropriety in this, relying on
precedents, which in such matters govern all things; he showed that the
decree could be revised, and did not admit, whatever might be the state
of a question, that they could ever support a claim founded on fraud or
error.
“The intercourse between nations [he says] should be marked by the
highest honor as well as honesty. The moment that the Government of the
United States discovers that a claim it makes on a foreign Government
can not be honorably and honestly pressed, that moment, no matter what
may be the period of the procedure, that claim should be dropped.”
Before such arguments one must bow; they do honor to the statesman who
has so well expressed them, who condemns the violent proceedings of
force, although ho is strong, and who in surrounding himself with the
solo principles of right and justice has assured the triumph of our
cause.
To-day we are disengaged from all responsibilities, and we have nothing
to pay to Pelletier or Lazare.
I would like to see in the hands of every Haytian the report of the Hon.
Thomas F. Bayard. The theories that he has perpetuated are above all
praise. The declaration of the sovereignty and equality of States
appears in every letter. The weak, he says, are to have assigned to them
the same territorial sanctities as the strong enjoy. There is good
reason for this. Were it not so, weak states would be the objects of
rapine, which would not only disgrace civilization, but would destroy
the security of the seas by breeding hordes of marauders and buccaneers,
who would find their spoil in communities which have no adequate power
of self-defense.
It is this protection that the United States Government guaranties to the
countries of America freed from European domination by virtue of a
doctrine justly celebrated with them.
I stop with these citations; the Department has given order for the
translation and printing of a large number of copies of this remarkable
report, of which I have tried to make a short analysis.
In noticing this, for us so satisfactory result produced by arbitration,
the more so from having been indirect and coming from a revision of a
judgment of this kind, how can we refrain from applauding a thought so
happy that has animated many members of several European and American
parliaments in proposing to their Governments to open negotiations to
the effect of developing, determining, generalizing, and assuring for
the settlements of international disputes, the employment of amiable
proceedings of mediation and arbitration?
How often have we tried to have recourse to it for the settlement of our
disputes, without seeing our efforts crowned with success?
[Page 630]
The Department continues the discussion with the great republic of Van
Bokkelen’a widow, Evan Williams, and Isabella Fournier’s claim.
I think it useless to repeat what has already been so fully exposed on
this subject in our various collections of diplomatic documents, but I
must say here, that we may hope for all before such brilliant justice
as-has been rendered to us by the Government of the United States of
America.
