Mr. Stover to Mr. Hay.
Madrid, May 21, 1901.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your instruction No. 320 with regard to the case of Mr. Benito Llaveria Pascual, called upon to perform military service in Spain.
I particularly note your ruling on the general question involved in this case, as submitted by the consulate-general at Barcelona. Your instruction says “a subsequent change of nationality would not operate to discharge the obligation”—“if under Spanish law, Mr. Llaveria was liable when enrolled in March, 1898.” I take the greater note of this as it was my own opinion before transmitting the case to the Department, and the importance that the question might assume in other cases made it advisable to obtain a general ruling as has been now given. Your instruction, however, to examine the question whether under Spanish law Mr. Llaveria was liable to military service in March, 1898, has been complied with to the best of my ability. An examination of the text of the laws and regulations concerning recruitment in the army, which took effect August 28, 1896, leads me to the conclusion that the carefully prepared and elaborately argued legal opinion of the Spanish commission of recruitment No. 609, of which a copy was transmitted with my dispatch No. 432 of April 16, is in full compliance with the law of Spain, and that Mr. Benito Llaveria Pascual was by Spanish law domiciled in Barcelona at the time of his enrollment in 1898; was of proper age to be enrolled, and his failure to present himself for such purpose places him entirely under the penal sections cited by the commission.
I have written, therefore, to the consul-general at Barcelona, transmitting to him a copy of your instruction No. 320, and explaining to him the conclusion which I have above narrated.
I have, etc.,