Mr. de Margerie to Mr. Hay.
Washington , December 22 (27), 1901 .
Mr. Secretary of State: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your notes bearing date of the 10th, 21st, and 24th instant, Nos. 432, 433, and 434, whereby, in reply to my note of the 24th ultimo, you were pleased to inform me:
- 1.
- That the Bureau of Navigation of the Treasury Department had called the attention of the authorities at Oakland, San Francisco, and Portland to the stipulations of the consular convention between France and the United States, of February 23,1853, especially to those having reference to deserters, and prohibiting unauthorized persons from going on board of foreign merchant vessels.
- 2.
- That on the 12th instant the governors of California and Oregon, with a view to preventing a repetition of the complaints made by the consulate of France, had instructed judges, sheriffs, police officers, and [Page 396] those charged with the preservation of peace to observe the stipulations of the said convention.
I thank you for these three communications, and for using your good offices with the governors of the States of California and Oregon, and I trust that the measures adopted by those magistrates will have the desired effect. It is constantly becoming more urgent that the present situation of French sailing vessels on the Pacific coast should be modified. Since transmitting the note which I had the honor to address to you on the 24th ultimo I have received several communications from the consul-general of France at San Francisco, from which it appears that the authorities continue to neglect the observance of the consular convention. I will cite the case of the district and United States court for the district of Oregon, which consented to receive an application from a French seaman for the seizure of his captain’s vessel. This led to the arrest of the Amiral Cornulier for two days, Captain Rio being obliged to furnish bail in the sum of $150 before he was allowed to put to sea, the difficulty between the captain and the seaman having been a dispute relative to the latter’s wages, which dispute, according to Article VIII (paragraph 1) of the consular convention between France and the United States, was a matter to be settled by the French consular authorities exclusively.
Of course the decision rendered by said courts in a case in which the consulate of France is alone competent to act would not be acceptable, and would necessarily have to be brought before the Federal courts in order to be set aside.
In addition to this special case, captains of French sailing vessels are daily obliged to complain of the way in which seamen are enticed to desert (no effort being made to prevent it by the authorities) by the keepers of seamen’s boarding houses in the different ports of the Pacific, the seamen in question, owing to their inexperience, falling an easy prey to their machinations.
If I have taken the liberty again to bring up this question, the serious character of which you will not fail to perceive, it is with the confident hope, Mr. Secretary of State, that, thanks to your intervention, the Federal and State authorities will more fully realize in future the duty which is incumbent upon them to secure respect for the consular convention signed by France and the United States.
Be pleased, etc.,