Mr. Uhl to Mr.
Vignaud.
Department of State,
Washington, March 12,
1895.
No. 370.]
Sir: I inclose herewith a copy of a
communication from Mr. Alfred Chapelié, United States vice-consul at
Tunis, Africa, dated February
[Page 415]
12, 1895, representing that the minister for foreign affairs of the Bey
of Tunis (who is also at the same time the French minister resident) had
notified him that the Government of Tunis intended to suppress all
privileges, honors, and prerogatives granted to the consuls by treaties,
except those who were salaried officers.
Mr. Chapelié gives no decree or other public announcement of the new rule
which appears to have been adopted in respect to unsalaried consular
representatives at Tunis, and it would seem to be an arbitrary
distinction put in practice without notice or any other than oral
explanation.
This Government, following the rule generally observed in other
countries, makes no discrimination between salaried and unsalaried
consular officers of foreign States. They ail stand on the same footing,
according to the commission they bear which defines their grade and
jurisdiction; they receive like exequaturs and enjoy identical
privileges and exemptions.
Under these circumstances this Government can not acquiesce in any
differential treatment of its consular officers abroad based upon a mere
detail of financial relation between this Government and its agent,
which in no manner concerns the agent’s relation to the Government to
which he is accredited and from which he receives his exequatur.
It must expect that such officers shall receive in a foreign country
equal treatment with other officers of like grade representing any
country whatsoever.
If it should appear that the invidious distinction in question has not
been imposed by the French Government, but has been adopted by the
French resident at Tunis in his accessory capacity as minister for
foreign affairs of the Bey, it is not doubted that it will suffice to
bring the matter to the attention of the French Government in order to
insure its correction in the proper quarter.
I am, etc.,
Edwin F. Uhl,
Acting Secretary
.
[Inclosure 1 in No.
370.]
Mr. Chapelié to
Mr. Uhl.
Consulate of the United States of America,
Tunis, February 12, 1895.
Sir: I beg to acknowledge receipt of your
dispatch No. 7 of the 5th of January last. I have the honor to-day
of submitting to the Department’s examination the following
fact:
According to the terms of the treaties confirmed by those of the
exequaturs, granted by the Beys of Tunis to the consular officers in
Tunis, the honors, privileges, and prerogatives they had a right to
were the following: Right to put a flagstaff and flag on the
consular house; right to have one or more janissaries appointed by
the Bey; to be exempted from civil or criminal jurisdiction; to be
exempted from custom-house duties upon personal effects for the
consul and family; to have the right of refuge or inviolability of
the consular house and official documents; right to the clause of
the most favored nation; exemption from taxes upon the consular
house.
These privileges have lasted for centuries, and I have been admitted
to divide [share] them as soon as I received my exequatur, but, to
my great surprise, on the 26th of January last, having sent one of
my
[Page 416]
janissaries to draw out
of the custom-house a small package I had received from Malta for my
private use, the custom-house officer informed him that he had
orders to refuse me the exemption of duties, as all privileges had
been abolished for unsalaried consular officers in Tunis.
Having had no official information of this fact from the Tunisian
government, I supposed it was the result of a mistake, and I called
the following day upon the French resident, who is at the same time
the minister of foreign affairs of the Bey, to inquire about the
matter but, to my great surprise, Mr. Millet made me the following
declaration, which, to my regret, it is my duty to transmit to the
Department. Mr. Millet told me that as soon as he had arrived from
Sweden, about four months ago, he decided that the honors and
privileges granted by the Tunisian government indistinctly to all
consular officers in Tunis had no reason to be extended to the
unsalaried ones; that he had therefore decided that henceforth they
should be suppressed for these, while they should be continued for
the salaried ones; that consequently he had divided the consular
corps of Tunis into two distinct parts, the salaried and the
unsalaried consuls and vice-consuls; that we were five of the second
class, my colleagues of Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Russia, and
myself, and that we should not expect any more to be treated on the
same footing as the others, not only about the accustomed
prerogatives and honors, but even about the official invitations to
the palace and to the residence—in fact, depriving us at his
pleasure of all the advantages and prestige of our commissions.
I answered Mr. Millet that I could not understand the reasons which
could lead him to take such a serious step against a corps which was
independent of him, or authorize him to an arbitrary classification
of it, especially as the unpaid officers represented as well as the
others, and in all their integrity, the rights and interests of the
Governments which had accredited them here; that I was extremely
surprised that no official communication should have been made
previously to us about this question, and that in his capacity of
minister to the Bey he could take upon himself the serious
responsibility of modifying at his pleasure the existing treaties
without having previously and officially ascertained the intentions
of the United States Government on the subject; that I had no
authority to treat diplomatic questions and consequently to discuss
the measure he wanted to enforce in such a blunt manner, but that
the appreciation of this question remained altogether to the
American Government alone, and that I was going to refer the matter
to Washington and wait for instructions. I suggested at the same
time that it would be much more preferable to let things stand until
the question should be examined by the Department, but he would not
hear of it, saying that his decision was irrevocable.
I called upon my colleagues of Belgium, Holland, and Russia, and
consulted them on the matter; they divide [share] entirely my
opinion and are transmitting the fact to their respective
Governments.
I remained a few days in suspense waiting to see whether Mr. Millet
had modified his views on this matter, but, finding they were
unchanged, I thought it necessary to prove my opposition by sending
him a protestative note. This note, of which I insert herewith a
translation, was forwarded to Mr. Millet on the 5th instant and no
answer has been made to it yet.
I shall conclude this perhaps too extensive dispatch by saying that
my private impression is that the whole of the affair is due to Mr.
Millet’s initiative alone. I know by private sayings that he wants
to diminish gradually and reduce to nothing the prestige and power
of the
[Page 417]
consular body here,
which he considers as dangerous. It will remain to the foreign
powers to know what to do in the matter, but I am perfectly
convinced that if the Tunisian government was really trying to
obtain this modification to the treaties, the affair should have
been conducted in the very courteous and very refined manner in
which Oriental Governments are in the habit of treating diplomatic
questions.
The manner in which I was informed—by a custom-house officer and
through my janissary—of Mr. Millet’s decision is more than
sufficient to prove that the Tunisian government had nothing to do
with the matter.
I am, etc.,
Alfred Chapelié,
United States
Vice-Consul
.
[Inclosure 2 in No.
370.—Translation].
Mr. Chapelié to
Mr. Millet.
Sir: In consequence of the conversation I
had the honor of having with you a few days ago, and in which you
informed me that the Tunisian government had decided upon the
suppression of all the honors, privileges, and prerogatives granted
until now to the unsalaried consular officers of the foreign powers
in Tunis, while it would continue them in favor of the salaried
agents, notwithstanding the perfect assimilation which always
existed between them from time immemorial in Tunis, I have examined
again, with the greatest attention, the texts of the treaties and
regulations which fix the relations of the American consular
officers with the Tunisian government, and I have arrived at the
following conclusions:
I am not authorized by my Government to treat diplomatic questions,
and have, consequently, no official quality to discuss with the
Bey’s government the reasons which led him to decide upon a measure
so unexpected and so completely in opposition to the terms of the
treaties which bind him to the United States Government. A measure,
in short, of a slighting nature both for the foreign representatives
it is aiming at and for the Governments they have the honor of
representing in Tunis.
The appreciation of this fact belongs to the Government at Washington
alone, and I am transmitting to it immediately the official
declaration you have thought proper to communicate to me on the
subject, asking for special orders.
Moreover, I am obliged in the meantime by the official position I am
occupying here, although an unsalaried officer, and by the mission
which is confided to me by the United States Government to oversee
and defend its interests in Tunis, to protest formally and in the
most absolute way against this arbitrary way of modifying the
treaties which the Tunisian government believes it has the right of
decreeing and which I consider as illegal and prejudicial to the
dignity and to the interests of the American nation; making my most
absolute reserves upon the application of this new measure, which is
not only in direct contradiction of the treaties as well as with the
terms of the exequatur which was granted to me hardly four months
ago, but which can not in any way be put into execution before a
previous understanding between the interested parties and the formal
consent of the United States.
For these reasons I have the honor of informing you that as long as I
have no special instructions from the Department at Washington upon
[Page 418]
this question I shall
continue to consider my official position in Tunis as unchanged, and
to hold the Tunisian government responsible for the consequences of
all the attempts which may take place against it.
I am, etc.,
A. Chapelié,
United States Vice-Consul in
Tunis
.
