No. 1090.
Mr. Bayard to Mr. Straus.
Washington, June 28, 1888.
Sir: I have received and read with much interest your dispatch No. 87, of the 8th instant, reporting the new law for the regulation of printing offices in the Ottoman Empire, which has been promulgated with-out consultation with the foreign missions at Constantinople, and the action taken by the diplomatic body in respect of such law in so far as it assumes to regulate and limit the rights of foreign printers and to invoke the cooperation of the foreign legations towards the enforcement of said law.
The note verbale addressed by you to the imperial ministry for foreign affairs under date of the 6th instant has my approval.
You do not advise me whether there are now any printing offices in Turkey owned or managed by citizens of the United States which would come within the prescriptions of the law in question; but in view of the extended educational and missionary interests under American direction in the Empire, I assume it to be desirable that no privilege of our citizens in this regard should be foregone, and that in printing, as in any other commercial or mechanical pursuit, it shall ever be open to our countrymen—in the words of Aarifi Pasha’s note of September 27, 1883, which you quote—
To choose and exercise in Turkey the professional or industrial occupations, a liberty which will continue in the future as in the past.
The objectionable provision of the new law regulating printing offices, in so far as concerns foreign citizens or subjects engaged in printing, is found in the second paragraph of article 5, and reads as follows:
Nevertheless, a foreigner shall not be permitted to set up a printing office, except he shall furnish a declaration, legalized by the embassy or legation of his country, whereby he shall never be able to take advantage, in his profession as a printer, of the privileges and immunities belonging to foreigners; that is to say, that he shall accept, the case arising, such proceedings in regard to himself and his printing offices as are followed in regard to Ottoman subjects.
This proposition is not new. The legislation of various countries of Spanish America, such as Mexico, Venezuela, and Peru, has sought to establish that a foreigner, while-continuing to be a subject or citizen of the country of his allegiance, may by his own act waive or forego the right to invoke the diplomatic protection of that Government in case of alleged injury. This position whenever taken up has been consistently opposed by the United States. When the Mexican law assumed to prescribe that the omission of a foreigner to register as an alien deprived him ipso facto of tie right to invoke the treaties and conventions [Page 1600] existing between his country and Mexico, and of the right to seek the protection of his own Government, this Department announced that such a law “can not disturb or affect the relationship existing at all times between this Government and one of its citizens. The duty is always incumbent upon a Government to exercise a just and proper guardianship over its citizens whether at home or abroad. A municipal act of another state can not abridge this duty, nor is such an act countenanced by the law or usage of nations.” (Foreign Relations, 1885, p. 576.) When the railway laws of Mexico and the laws of contracts of several other American states prescribe that renunciation of all claim to protection as a foreigner under international law or treaties is to be the condition precedent to taking service or entering into contract with the foreign Government, and in so far as such service or contract is concerned this Government has promptly maintained that the condition is necessarily void, and that it is not competent to a citizen to divest himself of any part of his inherent right to protection or to impair the duty of his Government to protect him. He may conclude his rights in such regard by ceasing to be a citizen, for that is the accepted doctrine of expatriation, but he may not remain a citizen and withdraw himself or be withdrawn under the operations of the municipal law of another country from the rights and duties of citizenship.
The above-quoted provision of the Turkish printing law of January 10, 1888, appears to be even more objectionable and contrary to the unassailable principle for which we contend than any of the Spanish-American legislation to which I refer, for it assumes to invest the individual renunciation of his personal rights with the sanction of his legation, and to make the foreign Government, through its instructional representative, in some sense a consenting party to the supposed renunciation. Holding, as we do, that the individual act is necessarily invalid per se, this Government could certainly not intervene in any way to invest such an act with a show of validity.
It is confidently trusted that the dignified and timely remonstrance of the foreign representatives at Constantinople against this very objectionable law will have borne good fruit, and that no further action on your part may be necessary, but if the position assumed in the note verbale is controverted, or if the international rights of any citizen of the United States should be invaded, this instruction will serve to suggest the further lines of argument you may pursue in conference with your colleagues of the diplomatic body or in discussion with the Turkish foreign office.
I am,