Mr. Gresham to Mr. Taylor.
Washington, July 14, 1893.
Sir: Your attention is directed to the claim of Antonio Maximo Mora against the Government of Spain. A full history of the case will be found in the correspondence between this Department and your predecessors, on file in your legation. I now desire especially to bring to your notice a few of the more salient features of the claim, showing its present status and explaining the instructions which will herein be given you in respect to it.
Mr. Mora, a native of Cuba, and a resident of this country since 1853, became a naturalized citizen in 1869. He had large estates in Cuba. In 1870, though absent, he was condemned to death, and his property confiscated by the sentence of a court-martial convened at Havana, for alleged complicity in the Cuban insurrection.
Against this action our Government protested, and in behalf of Mr. Mora demanded restoration of his property. Restitution was promised, but the promise was never performed. Years after (in the course of debate in the Cortes during the year 1886) Señor Moret, the Spanish minister of foreign affairs, admitted that his Government had received as income or rents from the confiscated estates of Mora, between the date of confiscation and March, 1876, more than $2,300,000, and still held the estates subject only to debts against Mora, amounting to less than $800,000.
For years unavailing efforts was put forth by this Government to obtain redress for Mr. Mora, Finally, on November 29, 1886, Mr. Moret, [Page 420] in a note to our minister, Mr. Curry, offered in behalf of his Government to pay $1,500,000, in full settlement of Mora’s claim. This note stipulated that the amount offered should be paid “by a charge upon the Cuban budget, and the minister of Ultramar,” it was said “will propose to the Cortes the means of payment in the next budget of 1887–’88.”
Although not an adequate compensation for Mr. Mora’s loss, this offer was accepted by our Government in the faith that the amount agreed upon would be speedily paid.
Although having no proper connection with the Mora case, I will here mention a collateral matter which appears to have occasioned some confusion of thought in the mind of the Spanish authorities. It is this: Certain other claims besides that of Mora had been preferred by this Government against Spain, and were pending at Madrid, and Spain had preferred certain, claims against this Government, which were pending at Washington.
In the spring of 1887 negotiations were had between Mr. Strobel, our secretary of legation at Madrid, and Mr. Figuera, representing the Spanish Government, looking to the adjustment of the American claims against Spain, not including the already adjusted Mora claim. These gentlemen reported favorably upon some of these claims and adversely upon others. In their joint report, dated May 3, 1887, it appears that—
Before terminating the conference the secretary of the legation of the United States stated that he was authorized by his chief (Mr. Curry) to declare that the Government of the Union, in just reciprocity for the conduct observed by the Government of Her Majesty, the Queen Regent, was, in its turn, ready to proceed to the examination and settlement of the claims which Spain has pending with the United States, in consequence of the cession of Florida and the war of secession.
This Government withheld its ratification from the Strobel-Figuera agreement because it was feared that the words “examination and settlement” appearing in this report might imply an admission on the part of the United States that something was due to Spain on account of the claims asserted by her. The position of this Government being that it owed nothing on such claims, it was thought that the question whether any liability whatever existed should be first ascertained.
It is understood that in June, 1887, the Colonial budget was presented to the Cortes containing a provision under which the Mora claim might have been paid; but the Cortes was prorogued by royal decree before any action could be taken on it.
It is further understood that a few days before the prorogation of the Cortes the committee to which the Cuban budget was referred reported as its opinion that—
Payment of the claims formulated by the Government of the Union as agreed upon by that of Spain must be simultaneously made with that of all Spanish claims.
There was no warrant for this report of the committee. The promise: by Spain to pay the Mora debt was never in any way coupled with the condition that this Government should pay, or even take into consideration, the claims asserted by Spain. There is nothing in the Strobel-Figuera agreement to warrant this idea of offset or conditional payment, as applicable to Mora’s claim; for it is to be observed, first, that that agreement in no way related to or was affected by the Mora claim or modified the unconditional agreement to pay the same, which had been previously concluded; secondly, the Strobel-Figuera agreement did not even make the payment of claims embraced by it conditional on the payment of the Spanish claims against this Government, [Page 421] but only promised that the examination and settlement of the latter should be proceeded with and, thirdly, the Strobel-Figuera agreement, for reasons already given, was never ratified by this Government, and therefore never became binding.
Commenting on the report of the committee of the Cortes above referred to, Mr. Curry, in a note to Mr. Moret of December 15, 1887, very properly said:
Your excellency, I submit, can not fail to perceive that this language has no relevancy to the Mora agreement, and is not in execution of the agreement of May 18, 1887.
Meaning the Strobel-Figuera agreement.
This Government of course was not and is not responsible for any erroneous views which may prevail in the Spanish Cortes, in regard to the payment of claims which that Government has unconditionally agreed to pay. Yet this Government was not unwilling to submit to arbitration claims, (other than the Mora claim) pending between the two Governments. Accordingly on December 15, 1887, Mr. Curry submitted to the Spanish Government a draft of a convention of arbitration. But the Mora case was by the terms of the convention thus proposed expressly excepted from its operation, and it was distinctly provided therein that Mora’s claim should be paid, “according to the terms heretofore agreed on.” Spain did not assent to the convention thus offered.
The Cortes again assembled early in 1888, and the budget was introduced but contained no provision for the payment of the Mora claim. Mr. Curry thereupon addressed a note to Mr. Moret, under date of April 24, 1888, inquiring why provision for payment of that claim had been omitted from the budget. On May 12, 1888, Mr. Moret replied, giving as the reason for the omission that the Cortes “was not disposed to sanction what had been done by the Government unless there should be a general settlement of claims on both sides.” Mr. Moret, however, well understood that no such general settlement was contemplated as a condition precedent to the payment of Mora’s claim, for, with his accustomed sense of honor, he said in behalf of the Spanish Government in his reply above referred to, “I desire in every way to make it evident that the Government neither proposes nor assumes to alter in anything what has been agreed upon with the Government of the United States,” and he declared that his Government only awaited the opportunity to propose a resolution to the Cortes, with probability of success. He further explained it was not necessary that the provision for paying Mora should be inserted in the Cuban budget, but that a bill for the purpose might be introduced at any time.
Mr. Moret’s reply and explanation having been transmitted by Mr. Curry to the Department, instructions were sent him on June 23, 1888, which referred to the convention proposed by this Government (presented to the Spanish Government December 15, 1887) as affording a solution of the parliamentary difficulty.
About this time the Marquis de Armijo succeeded Mr. Moret as the Spanish minister of foreign affairs. On June 30, 1888, Mr. Curry, in a note to the marquis, made a résumé of the Mora case down to that time, and acquainted the marquis how his predecessor, Mr. Moret, had been reminded that reciprocity in the payment of claims between the two countries could not apply to the case of Mora. In this note Mr. Curry characterizes Mora’s claim as one—
raised from the debatable and negotiable ground which it had previously occupied to the height of an international compact binding upon both governments.
The marquis replied to this note, intimating that the Cortes would make no appropriation for payment of the Mora claim, except on the understanding that such payment should coincide with payment of claims of Spain against the United States.
The above-mentioned note of Mr. Curry and the reply of the Marquis de Armijo thereto were transmitted to the Department by Mr. Strobel.
On September 17, 1888, the Department, in an instruction to Mr. Strobel, stated that it had been willing to couple the payment of Mora’s claim with an arrangement for the adjustment of other claims pending between the two governments, provided a fair understanding could be arrived at within a reasonable period. But it was distinctly declared that payment of this acknowledged debt of the Spanish Government could not be “indefinitely postponed” or delayed until the disposition or method of disposition should be reached of all the controverted claims of Spain. The convention proposed by this Government to Spain on the 15th December, 1887, was referred to, and it was intimated that the policy of the Spanish Government appeared to be “practically to defeat the settlement arrived at in the Mora case by an indefinite postponement.” Finally the opinion was expressed—
that the sum agreed to be paid in that case may, under the circumstances, fairly be treated as a debt due and withheld by Spain from the United States upon which interest should justly be computed from the time the agreement was concluded.
On October 15, 1888, the Spanish Government, referring to the convention proposed by us on December 15, 1887, expressed objections thereto and suggested a method of considering the claims of pain against our Government similar to that pursued in the Strobel-Figuera negotiations. This suggestion comtemplated a postponement of payment of all claims, including, in effect, though not in express terms, that of Mora, until a final settlement could be reached; and as this Department had always distinctly refused to agree to any such postponement of payment of Mora’s claim, the suggestion was of course not accepted.
A further objection to this suggestion was based upon the fact that it proposed an “examination and settlement” of claims of Spain against this Government in the very terms which furnish the ground of objection to the Strobel-Figuera agreement, an explanation of which objection was transmitted in an instruction to Mr. Belmont under date of December 18, 1888.
In another instruction of the last-named date, to Mr. Belmont, directing him to press the Mora claim, he was informed that the only claim which Spain had put forward as in any sense an offset to the claim of Mora, was that of Maza and Larrache for cotton alleged to have been taken from them by the United States authorities in 1865. This Government had emphatically denied any liability to pay this claim. Nevertheless Mr. Belmont was authorized to offer to submit the Maza and Larrache claim to arbitration, with the understanding that on the signature of the arbitration agreement, the Mora claim should be paid. Mr. Belmont accordingly suggested to the Spanish Government arbitration of the Maza and Larrache claim, but that Government objected and insisted that the only method of presenting the Mora claim to the Cortes, with the hope of securing the necessary appropriation, was to present it with a plan of general settlement. This was in February, 1839.
Of course, this Government, as above stated, could not recognize parliamentary difficulties in the way of securing an appropriation for the [Page 423] Mora claim, as in any way relieving Spain from her distinct and unconditional obligation to pay that claim.
Accordingly, on May 20, 1889, the Department sent to Mr. Palmer, who had then been appointed our minister to Spain, full instructions as to this claim. In these instructions, after expressing the willingness of the Government to “consider any arrangement for the examination and settlement of any and all claims which the Spanish Government is prepared to submit to its attention,” it was said:
But the President is unwilling to allow the execution of the absolute settlement of the Mora case to be made dependent upon the further settlement of other claims, however strong, which are still the subject of diplomatic discussion between the two governments, and which have never approached final adjudication.
Owing to some misunderstanding it appears that this instruction was never brought to the attention of the Spanish foreign office.
The foregoing review shows that since the agreement of 1886 to pay the Mora claim, it has not been the subject of offset or dependent upon the adjustment of any other claims, and the most that can be said by the Spanish Government is that the United States, in a spirit of liberality, expressed its willingness, in view of the above-mentioned parliamentary difficulties, that payment might be deferred until an agreement could be arrived at for the arbitration of other claims pending between the two governments, provided always, that such agreement should be reached in a reasonable time, and that payment of the Mora claim should not be postponed awaiting action under it.
Late in the last session of Congress the following resolution was introduced on the subject of that claim and it is believed would have been adopted but for shorthess of time:
That the President be, and he is hereby, authorized and requested to take such measures as in his judgement may be necessary to consummate the aforesaid agreement by the collection of the amount agreed upon with interest from the time the said amount should have been paid under the aforesaid agreement.
Unless the Spanish Government speedily changes its attitude towards this claim, a similar resolution, perhaps one more peremptory, will be introduced, with a strong probability of its passage at the next session of Congress, soon to assemble.
The Spanish Government agreed to indemnify the United States for the flagrant wrong done to Mr. Mora, by the unconditional payment of a sum of money. The justice of the demand could not fairly be questioned, and now nothing short of full and prompt payment will be acceptable to this Government. The United States will not consent that payment shall await the final adjustment of claims asserted by Spain against us, or that payment shall depend upon the willingness of the Cortes to make the necessary appropriation. This Government is still willing to enter into an agreement for the settlement of all pending claims, but not with any understanding that payment of the Mora claim shall in any wise depend upon the consummation of such agreement or settlement.
You will avail yourself of an early opportunity to present these conclusions to the Spanish Government, and hand a copy of this note to the minister for foreign affairs.
I am, etc.,