Mr. Gresham to Mr. Taylor.
Washington, June 5, 1894.
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your Nos. 135, 137, 140, 147, and 149, as well as your telegram of 21st March, all in reference to the Mora case.
I now desire to make some observations upon Mr. Moret’s communications of February 26 and March 27, copies of which were received with your Nos. 137 and 149, respectively.
Mr. Moret says that the Department’s instruction to you of July 14 last “contains statements which, although they have been verbally rectified,” he deems important to answer in writing.
This Department knows nothing of any verbal rectification of any of the statements contained in that instruction in Mr. Moret’s verbal interview with you on this subject, as reported by you to the Department, there was no denial of those statements, but rather an implied admission of their correctness, coupled with a request that you should suggest some means of extrication from the dilemma in which he found himself placed between the undeniable facts and his own explicit promises on the one hand and the hostile disposition of the Cortes on the other.
The answer of Mr. Moret conveys to this Department the first intimation that the Spanish Government controverted any of the statements contained in the instruction of July 14.
Mr. Moret asserts that—
The seizure and the proceedings against the property which was owned in Cuba by Mora and others dates from the time when they were Spanish subjects and supported there the rebellion personally or with their means and resources.
It is quite unnecessary to enter upon a discussion of the question of Mora’s citizenship as the time of the first interference with his property by the Spanish Government; it is equally unnecessary to inquire into the question of his sympathies during the Cuban insurrection.
[Page 447]It suffices to refer to the following facts, which must be well known to Mr. Moret:
- (1) Time and again after November 7, 1870, when the court-martial at Havana condemned Mora to death and confiscated his property—he being at that time undoubtedly an American citizen—this Government insisted that his property should be restored to him.
- (2) On July 12, 1873, the Spanish Government issued an order for the restoration of all the embargoed properties in Cuba, which, of course, includes Mora’s.
- (3) The Cuban authorities failed to obey this order.
- (4) On September 9, 1873, this Government having ascertained that the Cuban authorities were acting in disregard of the order of restitution, telegraphed our minister at Madrid, Mr. Sickles, to protest against the action.
- (5) Gen. Sickles, in reply to this protest, was assured by the Spanish Government that the claims of American citizens had been favorably decided, and that orders had been again sent to the captain-general of Cuba to restore the property.
- (6) Those orders not having been complied with, the Spanish Government in 1876 again promised restoration.
- (7) Notwithstanding all this, Mora’s property never was restored to him.
- (8 and finally) The agreement of 1886 to pay Mora $1,500,000 was a compromise, and a liquidation most favorable to Spain, of the damages to which Mora was entitled, in lieu of his property which had been unlawfully confiscated, and the restoration of which had been several times decreed by the Spanish Government, in acknowledgment of his title to the same.
It is, therefore, impossible for this Government to regard the promise to pay this claim as a mere “friendly concession made by the Spanish Government in its desire to preserve the closest friendship with the United States.” Nor is it possible for this Government to agree with Mr. Moret that the question “is not one of those matters of strict justice which require immediate reparation.”
The statement that the Spanish Government received the income from the Mora estates, which Mr. Moret now says is erroneous, was based upon his own assertion made in the Cortes during the debate upon this very casein the year 1888. This assertion is still believed to be correct, notwithstanding the trustees under the insolvency proceedings against Mora may have in the first instance collected the income. For, by virtue of article 52 of the code of civil procedure then in force in Cuba, taken in connection with the royal order of October 30, 1862, the trustees were obliged to deposit all money collected by them in the public treasury. In the treasury, they did deposit it, and to the treasury they appealed in vain to have allowed them even a portion of it to meet the necessary expenses of the estate under their charge. Whether, however the Spanish Government did or did not receive this income, is immaterial to the rights of this Government or the obligations of Spain.
Mr. Moret promised that the sum to be paid should be charged up to the Cuban budget, and this Government cannot concur in the view now advanced by him that its rights thus became conditional upon the action of the Cortes. The promise to pay the liquidated amount ($1,500,000) was based upon an existing right, the justice of which had already been more than once acknowledged by the Spanish Government in its decrees directing a restoration of the property. Surely it will not be said the [Page 448] consent of the Cortes was necessary to the restoration of the property itself. Mr. Moret will scarcely contend that the executive anthority could arbitrarily seize the property and refuse to restore it on the ground that the legislature would not agree to the restoration.
The inhibitions of the Spanish constitution, which it is claimed do not permit the sovereign to pay money without the consent of the Cortes, can not be urged by Spain as a ground for not paying the money which it was agreed should be received in lieu of the property itself. This Government regrets the parliamentary difficulties which embarrass Spain in providing the funds for the payment of Mora’s claim, and desires as far as possible to cooperate with that Government in removing them. But the mere existence of these obstacles cannot in the opinion of this Government exonerate Spain from her obligation. Could such a doctrine be maintained, even an arbitration of claims would be futile, for the money awarded would still have to be appropriated, and Mr. Moret’s theory would make the Cortes’ refusal to appropriate a conclusive answer to a demand for compliance with the award.
Should the President and the Senate conclude a treaty with Spain or any other power requiring an expenditure of money by this Government, an appropriation of the amount by the House of Representatives would be necessary, but failure by that body to make the appropriation could not be offered and would not be accepted as an excuse for nonfulfillment of the treaty.
This Government, while not admitting that its rights or the obligation of Spain are effected by the failure of the Cortes to make an appropriation, understands and appreciates the difficulty which the nonaction of the Cortes creates, and has sought to remove this difficulty by proposing a convention for the settlement of pending and unadjusted claims between the two countries. The United States confidently entertains the hope that as soon as such a convention is agreed upon Mr. Moret will be able, without further delay, to pass a bill through the Cortes for the payment of the Mora claim, and you are instructed to again bring to the attention of the Spanish Government my No. 95, of February 14, 1894, and the draft which accompanied it, and inform Mr. Moret that the President is willing to conclude a treaty on that basis.
You will read this instruction to the minister of state and leave a copy of it with him.
I am, etc.,