Office of the Historian

Ambassador White to the Secretary of State.

American Embassy,
Rome, January 11, 1906.
No. 106.]

Sir: With respect to your instruction No. 45, of October 11 last, which reached me on the 7th of November, I have the honor to inform you that on the 11th of that month I asked the late minister for foreign affairs, Signor Tittoni, whether the amendment to the Italo-Greek extradition treaty, to which you refer, was made in pursuance of any general policy of this Government to extend the period in which extradition shall take place; and if so, whether it is proposed to invite a smilar amendment to our treaty with Italy, which I intimated might not be unwelcome to us for the reasons set forth in your instruction.

Signor Tittoni made a note of what I said, promised to give the matter his attention, and let me know the result. I again mentioned the matter to him on the 22d of November, and he replied that he had ordered a written statement to be prepared for my information, which he would shortly send me.

Twice during the month of December he made a similar statement in reply to my inquiries, and when I went to wish him good-by, upon his departure from the foreign office, I again spoke to him on the subject, and he said that he had decided to hand it on to his successor.

[Page 917]

When I paid my first visit to the latter, the Marquis di San Giuliano, on the 30th ultimo, I brought up the subject, and he asked me to send him a memorandum, which I did, and I inclose a copy of the same. Two days later he said to me that he had not had time to study the subject and would therefore not be able to give me the verbal answer which I had suggested in my note that he might give me on the occasion of my next visit to the foreign office.

I must now leave the matter in Mr. Hitt’s hands and hope that he will be able to obtain the views of the Italian Government on the subject during my absence at Algeciras.

I have, etc.,

Henry White.

[Inclosure.—Memorandum.]

On the 16th of March last a declaration was signed at Athens between the representatives of the Italian and Greek Governments amending the extradition treaty between this country and Greece in such a manner as to allow a period of three months from the date of arrest before the person whose extradition is requested can be discharged because of the failure to extradite him.

The American ambassador has been asked by his Government to inquire informally whether this amendment to the extradition treaty with Greece was made in pursuance of any general policy on the part of His Majesty’s Government to extend in extradition treaties the period within which extradition shall take place, and if so, whether it is proposed to suggest a similar amendment of the treaty now in force between the United States of America and Italy.

The ambassador deems it proper to add that, while no case has so far arisen in which the limit of forty days, as now provided in the Italo-American treaty, has proved insufficient, yet in view of the distance of many of the States of the American Union from Washington, and of the time necessarily consumed in perfecting the requisitions of the governors of the different States, it is conceived that a longer period might be convenient to both parties and might avert the remote possibility of a miscarriage of justice.

Rome, January 4, 1906.