Mr. Foster to Mr. White.
Washington, November 21, 1892.
Sir: In the judgment of the President the time is opportune for an explicit assertion of the views of the Government of the United States with respect to its rights in the harbor of Pago Pago, as secured by treaty with the Samoan Islands and as now in process of accomplishment. The good concurrence of the treaty powers hitherto touching their mutual rights and obligations in regard to the Samoan Islands has precluded occasion for formal insistence upon the rights and policy of the United States as respects its naval and coaling station in those islands; but a recent occurrence constrains a definite and frank statement in this relation.
In June last the consular representative of the United States at Apia reported the visit of Her Majesty’s ship Curaçoa to Pago Pago, taking on board the British land commissioner in Samoa for the announced purpose “of looking at the land claimed by the United States Government in that harbor.” The commissioner, Mr. Haggard, landed there for a few hours and returned to Apia forthwith.
This proceeding might have been passed over without notice but for the circumstance that it has been stated, without contradiction, in the British press of the Australian colonies, that the object of Mr. Haggard’s visit was to select a place for a British coaling station in Pago Pago harbor, and that he in fact allotted a piece of land there with that design. While the absence of denial or correction of this statement [Page 244] from any official quarter may justify taking notice thereof, I should be reluctant to assume that Her Majesty’s Government would take such action in a locality where the Government of the United States possessed prior rights, without notification to us or comparison of views.
The United States have possessed continuous rights in the harbor of Pago Pago, for the purpose of a naval and coaling station, since 1872, when the confederated chiefs of the Island of Tutuila offered it to this Government, by a formal letter of the Chief Manga to the President, dated Pago Pago, August 15, 1873, saying: “We give to you exclusive right to our harbor, and we want you to use it.” Later, the Taimua and Faipule, representing all the islands of the Samoan group, sent an envoy to Washington, with whom was negotiated January 17, 1878, the first formal treaty between Samoa and any foreign power. That treaty contained express stipulations in regard to the use of Pago Pago harbor as follows:
Article II. Naval vessels of the United States shall have the privilege of entering and using the port of Pago Pago, and establishing therein and on the shores thereof a station for coal and other naval supplies for their naval and commercial marine, and the Samoan Government will thereafter neither exercise nor authorize any jurisdiction within said port adverse to such rights of the United States or restrictive thereof.
Upon the ratification and exchange of this treaty, the Taimua and Faipule executed on the 5th of August, 1878, a formal instrument transferring to the Government of the United States the privilege of using the port of Pago Pago and the shores thereof, in accordance with the treaty.
A treaty between Germany and the Samoan Islands was subsequently concluded, January 24, 1879, which distinctly respected the cession of Pago Pago harbor for the use of the United States by conveying to Germany like exclusive rights in another harbor, that of Salufata.
A similar treaty was, still later, signed with Great Britain, August 28, 1879. Like the two preceding treaties with the United States and with Germany, it contained provision for a naval and coaling station, as follows:
Article VIII. Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain may, if she think fit, establish on the shores of a Samoan harbor, to be hereafter designated by Her Majesty, a naval station and coaling depot; but this article shall not apply to the harbors of Apia or Salufata, or to that part of the harbor of Pago Pago which may be hereafter selected by the Government of the United States as a station under the provisions of the treaty concluded between the United States of America and the Samoan Government on the seventeenth day of January, in the year one thousand eight hundred and seventy-eight.
While purporting to respect the rights of Germany to Salufata harbor and equally those of the United States to Pago Pago, this article is so phrased as to convey the suggestion that Her Majesty’s government is permitted by that of Samoa to avail itself of the use of Pago Pago harbor, should Her Majesty designate some “part” thereof not “selected” by the Government of the United States as a station under the provisions of the American treaty with Samoa.
At best, were this stipulation valid as against the United States, it is, by its terms, expressly contingent upon their being some part of the harbor or of its shores which this Government under its prior and paramount grant does not desire directly or indirectly for the purpose of the grant.
Under the express provisions, however, of the prior treaty between the United States and Samoa, and by the formal instrument of transfer, the Samoan Government has absolutely conveyed to the United States the privilege of entering and using the port of Pago Pago and [Page 245] the shores thereof for a coaling and naval station. Any subsequent action of the Taimua and Faipule in entering into a contract with Great Britain, which may be construed as granting to that Government a right of entry and use in respect to the harbor of Pago Pago, similar to and in common with that conveyed to the United States, is void because the grantor is no longer competent to deliver the thing alleged to be granted.
So much for the terms of the grant itself. But the exclusive and complete right of the United States in the premises is further fortified by the solemn covenant between the Samoan Government and the United States, that Samoa “will hereafter neither exercise nor authorize any jurisdiction within said port adverse to such rights of the United States or restrictive thereof.” This stipulation, while not necessary to the complete and exclusive validity of the actual grant, nevertheless affords a convenient measure of the obligation of Samoa toward the United States; inasmuch as the injection of any similar and additional right of entry and use, in favor of any foreign power whatsoever in the harbor of Pago Pago, would necessarily constitute the exercise and authorization of another jurisdiction within said port adverse to and restrictive of the rights expressly acquired by the United States.
This Government has on several occasions publicly announced its possession of vested rights in the harbor of Pago Pago. It has taken continuous measures to maintain those rights. Steps are now in progress for the improvement of the harbor to the designed end, and lands on its shore have been from time to time purchased from the owners as required by the development of the plans for a naval and coaling station. So far as this process may suggest, availing of its rights in the premises, it is (presently) continuous and not exhausted. Through no act nor omission of the Government of the United States can its rights and privileges be considered to have lapsed or to have reverted to the Samoan Government.
I am not, in fact, advised that it is the intention of Her Majesty’s Government to put forth a claim to enter and use the harbor of Pago Pago as a coaling station, and I shall be glad to learn that the apprehensions excited by the recent action of Her Majesty’s Samoan land commissioner were without real foundation. It is, nevertheless, due to the spirit of cordial frankness which it is ever the aim of this Government to observe that this incident should be availed of in order to convey to Her Majesty’s Government the views of this Government in this important regard.
You are, therefore, instructed to make known the views herein expressed to Her Majesty’s Government through Her Majesty’s secretary of state for foreign affairs, adding that, while not anticipating any other than cordial acquiescence therein, it is deemed proper to make known the President’s conviction that any attempt on the part of Her Majesty’s Government to occupy any part of the port of Pago Pago as a coaling or naval station could not fail to be regarded by this Government as an unfriendly act, because tending to impair our vested rights therein.
You will at the same time say that this Government has at no time had, and has not now, any desire to exclusively occupy the harbor of Pago Pago to the inconvenience of other shipping. The terms and objects of the exclusive cession of the right to use the port and shores for a naval and coaling station are compatible with and may be regarded as implying much of the detailed stipulations found in the German-Samoan treaty and as meaning that, like Saluafata, the harbor of Pago [Page 246] Pago shall not be closed on account of the rights granted to the United States to the naval or mercantile ships of any such other nations for whom the Samoan Government keep their other ports opened, but the Samoan Government shall not grant to any other nation such rights with respect to the harbor of Pago Pago and its shores as those granted to the Government of the United States.
You will communicate the foregoing to the Earl of Rosebery by reading it to him and, should his lordship so desire, leaving with him a copy.
I am, etc.,