The Secretary of State to Ambassador White .
Washington , October 17, 1905.
Sir: I inclose a copy of a dispatcha from the American chargé d’affaires ad interim at Athens, forwarding a copy of a declaration signed by the governments of Greece and Italy, amending their extradition treaty so as to allow a period of three months from the date of the arrest before the person whose extradition is requested can be discharged because of the failure to extradite him.
You will make informal inquiry whether this amendment was made to the Greek treaty in pursuance of any general policy of the Italian Government to extend the period within which extradition shall take place, and if so whether it is contemplated to invite amendment of the Italo-American treaty in the same sense. You may say that, while no case has so far arisen where the forty-day limit of our treaty has proved insufficient, yet in view of the distance of many of our States from the capital and the time necessarily consumed in perfecting the requisitions of the state governors, it is conceived that a longer period might be convenient to both parties and avert the remote possibility of a miscarriage of justice.
I am, etc.,