Mr. Powell to Mr.
Sherman.
Legation of the United States,
Port au Prince, Haiti, May 5,
1898.
No. 242.]
Sir: I am glad to inform the Department that a
question which has been attended with considerable correspondence in
regard to certain privileges and rights that should be enjoyed by
American citizens in business, or employed as mechanics, workmen
(artisans), or clerks, and which was denied to them under what was known
as the patent or license act, has been definitely and satisfactorily
adjusted in our favor, as will be seen by the inclosed correspondence.
All that I have claimed from this Government in the adjustment of this
question has been conceded, so that this question, which has been
pending for a period of thirty years, is forever removed from the arena
of diplomatic controversy.
In the satisfactory adjustment of this question opens to us greater
benefits than the most sanguine could expect; by it all barriers are
removed, and places the American citizen, in whatever business he may be
in, upon an equal footing with Haitian citizens in like business. * *
*
I have agreed that no demand will be made by my Government for a
refunding of the money paid for patents or licenses prior to August 30,
1897, at which time my letter was filed with them.
We have here nearly 1,000 American citizens, 500 of whom are in business.
They pay an average patent or license tax of $50,000 yearly, and for the
twenty years this law has been in effect about $1,000,000 has been paid
into the Haitian treasury. * * *
All avenues of business and trade are open to our citizens, they being,
by the adjustment made, placed upon an equal footing with Haitian
citizens. * * *
I trust the Department will indorse the action I have taken in bringing
about a happy solution of this matter.
I have, etc.,
[Inclosure 1 in No.
242.]
Mr. Powell to Mr.
St. Victor.
Legation of the United States,
Port au Prince, Haiti,
April 30,
1898.
Sir: Your dispatch received by me to-day
was a surprise and, I frankly say to you, a serious disappointment.
I thought from the interview held at your residence yesterday
everything was amicably settled and arranged. I felt so certain in
regard to this that I had prepared a dispatch to my Government
covering our correspondence, stating that after a period of twenty
years, after an unlimited correspondence, this question had at last
been settled. Through the views expressed by yourself, I thought we
had arranged to forever remove this question of contention which was
at any time apt to involve the Governments of the two Republics in
unhappy results.
You state that my dispatch to you of yesterday has caused you to halt
in concluding this matter; that you did not consider the case of Mr.
Metzger should be considered in this measure. There is where I think
you are wrong; you are confounding two matters in one. I have
claimed in all my dispatches in regard to this case, both to
yourself and to your predecessor, Mr. Menos, in my dispatch to him
of August 31, 1897, No. 9, that our rights under the treaty were
violated when the commune sought to make Mr. Metzger pay a license
for workman that was not required under the communal law of Haitian
workmen. I have rightfully claimed from that
[Page 400]
date to the present the commune had no such
right. If this right be conceded to them to so violate treaty
stipulations as well as treaty rights, then I should consider the
authority of the commune to be paramount to the national laws of the
Republic. If this be taken as the true interpretation of this law,
then my Government has made a serious error in not recognizing the
commune as the supreme body, and the national authority as being but
secondary to it. Further, that all treaties should have been made
with it; that my Government should have accredited its
representatives to it instead of to his excellency.
You can thus see, to admit such a construction, the peculiar position
in which your Government would be placed. I have contended and I
think fully shown to you, both in dispatches and in interviews held,
the falsity and absurdity of such view, to which you yourself I
thought had agreed.
I think your error, if it may be called an error, lies in this. Mr.
Metzger’s case, while primarily bearing upon the rights of American
citizens under the treaty, and in the violation of those, is a
separate matter entirely. In Mr. Metzger’s case a claim is made to
an unwarrantable seizure of goods, to an illegal sale of the same,
and to the stoppage of his business, wherein he claims he has
suffered serious loss and damage.
The question now pending between us is our rights under the treaty in
taxation imposed. The unjust discrimination shown in compelling
American citizens to pay a higher rate for such patents or license
does not settle this case, except where it bears upon the principle
whether a tax or license should have been collected.
The question of reimbursement of damages for losses or injuries
sustained are questions yet to be settled when this case is
reached.
I trust, Mr. Minister, you can see the difference in these cases, and
that you will adhere to our agreement made at the recent interview I
allude to. In so doing you will happily bring our countries in
accord the one with the other.
Accept, Mr. Minister, my high regard and esteem.
I have, etc.
[Inclosure 2 in No.
242.—Translation.]
Mr. St. Victor to
Mr. Powell.
Department of State for Foreign Relations,
Port au Prince, April 29, 1898.
Mr. Minister: Permit me to express to you
the astonishment caused me by your letter of April 27, No. 97, after
the entirely friendly interview that we had had the morning of the
same day.
It had been agreed between us that I should answer your letters of
the 15th and 25th of April, current, when you should have confirmed,
by your answer to my dispatch of the 25th of this month, the promise
by which your Government engages itself not to return to the
question of the contributions paid by your citizens in Haiti up to
the date of September 30, 1897.
By your letter of April 26 you have kindly done so; with the
exception of a slight difference in the date at which the attention
of my predecessor was called to the interpretation of Article V of
the treaty, our interview was confirmed. My answer was ready and I
was going to sign it when your letter of April 27 reached me.
By that dispatch I have the regret to find that your legation has
confounded two distinct things—the “Metzger” claim and the
interpretation of Article V of the treaty of 1864.
In the Metzger affair it is a question of knowing whether the commune
had the right to assimilate the workmen of the establishment of Mr.
Metzger to foreign clerks, in exacting of them the license that is
claimed of foreign clerks, and if the seizure made at the place of
the patron of these workmen for what the latter owed was legal or
not.
It seems to me that this question does not relate in anywise to the
question of the interpretation of Article V of the treaty from the
point of view of the equality of taxes between Haitians and the
citizens of the United States. In an interview that we had at the
time at your legation I set forth the difference that exists between
these two cases.
I hope that your legation will kindly recognize that these two
questions are distinct one from the other, and I am obliged to refer
you to my dispatch of February 4, where it is exclusively question
of the Metzger claim.
Accept, etc.,
[Page 401]
[Inclosure 3 in No.
242.]
Mr. Powell to Mr.
St. Victor.
Legation of the United States,
Port au Prince, Haiti,
May 4, 1898.
No. 104.]
Sir: I cordially acknowledge the receipt of
your communication announcing that from August 31, 1897, the
Government of Haiti would not require from American citizens any
higher tax than that required of Haitian citizens, either in
business as merchants or as workmen.
I am more than glad that this question of patents and licenses, which
has resulted in a large correspondence between the representatives
of our respective Governments for the past twenty years, has at last
received a definite and complete settlement for all time, and to
extend to you my compliments for the personal efforts you have made
to attain this result.
I inclose certain letters to you which will explain themselves.
Accept, Mr. Minister, my sincere as well as my deep regards.
I have, etc.,
[Subinclosure 1 in inclosure No.
3.]
Messrs. Weymann &
Co. to Mr. Powell.
Port au Prince, May
4, 1898.
Dear Sir: We beg to acknowledge receipt of
your notification that in future all fees paid in Haiti for patents,
etc., by American citizens shall in all respects be the same as
those paid by Haitians; that this ought to be in force since August
31, 1897, in accordance with the existing treaty between the United
States and Haiti; and that, in consequence, the surplus amount paid
by us last year under protest would be refunded us should we insist
upon it.
Considering the unfortunate financial position of the country at the
present time, we do not desire to press this claim, and herewith
waive all claim to repayment of such amounts.
We beg to tender you our best thanks for all the trouble you have had
in this matter, and remain, dear sir, yours, etc.,
Ch. Weymann & Co.
[Inclosure 4 in No.
242.—Translation.]
Mr. St. Victor to
Mr. Powell.
[undated]
Mr. Minister: I have the honor to
acknowledge receipt of your letters of the 15th and 25th April,
bearing numbers 38 and 94.
Under cover of the first you have kindly transmitted to me a copy of
the instructions that you have received from the honorable the
Secretary of State, Mr. John Sherman, touching article 5 of the
treaty of 1864. By the second you request me to make to you in due
time an answer definitely transmitting the sentiments and views of
my Government on the subject of the license question.
In the first place, I cannot prevent myself from rendering a
brilliant justice to the spirit of conciliation of which you have
given precious testimony in inviting Messrs. R. Nortz and Ch.
Weymann to pay over their respective license to the funds of the
commune, up to the settlement of the question. (Dispatch of November
11, 1897, to Mr. Menos.) It is impossible to better make us feel the
full price that you attach to the maintenance of the friendly
relations that have always existed between our two countries. My
Government, in the same spirit of understanding, believes to respond
to the national desire in saying to you that its intention is to
bind closer our commercial and political relations, the more so as,
to arrive at this, it will not fail to propose in seasonable time a
modification of the treaty of 1864, of which the imperfection
revealed itself at the time of the extradition of the American
citizen George Grant. It imports, in fact, that by additional
articles or by a supplementary convention we may know precisely the
real bearing of certain stipulations or fill up the gaps that have
escaped the negotiators.
In the meantime I have the honor to bring to your knowledge that my
Government gives its adhesion to the interpretation of article 5 of
the Haitian-American treaty of 1864, in the sense indicated by the
Government of the United States of America.
[Page 402]
The American citizens residing in Haiti shall pay in the future the
same taxes as the Haitians. It is well understood that this adhesion
in no wise alters the promise made in your letter of April 26 last,
No: 95, by which you informed me that the Government of the United
States of America will not demand the reimbursement of the
contributions paid for license by Americans to the communal funds up
to August 19, 1897.
Allow me to profit the occasion, Mr. Minister, to renew to you the
assurances of my high consideration and of my personal esteem.
The secretary of state for foreign relations:
[Inclosure 6 in No.
242.]
Mr. Powell to Mr.
St. Victor.
Port au Prince,
Haiti[, undated].
My Dear Mr. Minister: Mr. Battiste has just
informed me of your recent visit to the legation and that 1
attributed to you certain statements in a recent dispatch that you
had never made. I therefore, as soon as my attention was called to
the same, desire on my part to remove from your mind any such
thought. Unfortunately, it seems to me that my letters to you are
distorted. If you will refer to dispatch No. 9, written to Mr.
Menos, you will find the language there you complain of that I
allude to you as you think.
In presenting the case of Mr. Metzger to your Government, Mr. Menos
stated to me that it was a question in which the National Government
could not interfere; that the commune acted under such special laws,
which governed the case of Mr. Metzger, that the only redress open
to him was through the local courts. In my reply to Menos I used
this language: That my Government could not accept such; to do so
would be to make the commune above the national authority; if such
was the case, then my Government erred in making a treaty or sending
a representative to be accredited to His Excellency, but rather
should have made such treaty with the commune, etc.
This letter refers entirely to the view held by Mr. Menos at the time
and at the commencement of our correspondence, and could in no wise
reflect upon you at this time. Our intercourse in regard to Mr.
Metzger has been in an entirely different vein, so that any of the
previous correspondence could not in the least reflect upon you.
I trust to make my letters plain always to you, and at no time seek
to take an unfair advantage, nor to impute to you that which you
have not said.
Do me the justice to recall my letters and construe them as I send
them. In so doing, such an unfortunate occurrence could not take
place.
I am, etc.,
