Office of the Historian

Ambassador Thompson to the Acting Secretary of State.

American Embassy,
Mexico, July 10, 1906.
No. 119.]

Sir: Referring to my dispatch No. 99, of the 20th ultimo, in which I forwarded a copy of a note addressed by me on that date to the foreign office, advising the Mexican Government that with the advice and consent of the Senate the President of the United States had ratified the sanitary convention, signed ad referendum at Washington on October 14, 1905, and stating that it was the desire of the department that some understanding should be reached by the signatory Governments as to the manner of exchange of ratifications, deposit of ratifications, or notice of ratifications, for which it appears the convention had failed to make any provision, I now inclose for the department’s information a copy and translation of a note addressed to me by Mr. Mariscal, dated the 29th ultimo, in which he expresses the view that each Government signatory to the convention in question send notice of its ratification to the Government of the United States, and suggests that that Government, in its turn, advise the other signatory Governments of the deposits of such notice, etc.

I have, etc.,

D. E. Thompson.
[Inclosure.—Translation.]

The Minister for Foreign Affairs to Ambassador Thompson.

Department of Foreign Affairs,
Mexico, June 29, 1906.

Mr. Ambassador: I opportunely received your excellency’s note dated the 20th instant, in which you have been pleased to inform me that the President of the United States of America, with the consent of the Senate, ratified, on May 29 last, the sanitary convention signed at Washington on October 14, 1905, of which the embassy transmitted, on December 9 of the same year, a copy of the Spanish and another of the English versions, properly certified.

Your excellency has also been pleased to inquire, on account of this ratification, whether the Mexican Government would, when the time comes, deposit with the Government of the United States the instrument of its ratification, inasmuch as it has been the custom in the case of other similar conventions, to the end that if the above be observed your excellency’s Government may send notifications of the deposit, through the diplomatic channel, to the other signatory governments.

The matter having been studied with the proper care, I beg to say to your excellency that, in the opinion of this Government, it appears sufficient for the effects sought that each Government signatory to the convention, or which, having not signed the name, may adhere to it, send notice of its ratification to the above convention to that of the United States, mentioning the date on which the ratification may have been made, and that the Government of the United States, in its turn, notify the other signatory governments of said fact. Such was the course followed concerning the conventions agreed upon during the Second International Conference, and, while the procedure is much more simple, the same filled the purpose sought in such cases. If, notwithstanding what I have said, your excellency’s Government should desire that the instruments of ratification be deposited with it, the Government of Mexico will see no impediment in issuing and transmitting its own when the time comes for it to ratify and promulgate the above-mentioned convention.

It affords, etc.,

Igno. Mariscal.