Minister Furniss to
the Secretary of State.
American Legation,
Port an
Prince, March 26,
1906.
No. 40.]
Sir: I am in receipt of department’s No. 12, of
the 5th instant, and agreeable thereto, at once addressed a note to
Secretary Ferere, informing him of the department’s views on the
subject.
Under date of the 23d instant I received reply from Secretary Ferere in
which he disclaims any idea of wishing to offend our Government, with
which Haiti has always endeavored to entertain the most frank and
sincere relations.
There is inclosed herewith the correspondence between this legation and
Secretary Férère.
I have, etc.,
[Inclosure 1.]
Minister Furniss to the Haitian
Secretary of Foreign Relations.
American Legation,
Port au
Prince, March 16,
1906.
Sir: In further reference to my No. 21, of
February 16, 1906, I have to inform you that I am in receipt of a
communication from my Government wherein I am advised that it does
not look friendlily upon the action of your
[Page 876]
Government in peremptorily withdrawing the
exequatur of Mr. Behrmann, our vice-consul at Cape Haitien.
It has been the custom for so long as to verge on to an obligation,
in the intercourse of nations, to make known to a friendly
government the reasons which have caused its representative to be
persona non grata and then ask for his recall. The reasons which you
give in your note of the 13th ultimo would have invited ready
compliance with such a request, particularly so as the vice-consul
in question is not even an American citizen.
However, in reviewing the case, it would seem that something further
than the mere cancellation of the vice-consul’s exequatur was
intended. Otherwise, conditions were such that there could be no
just reason for summary action. At the time Consul Livingston was at
his post. Mr. Behrmann, as vice-consul, only had authority to act in
his principal’s absence and no such absence was contemplated. No act
of the vice-consul under such circumstances could be considered as
official, and anything done in his private capacity could not have
been sufficiently grave to warrant offending a friendly nation by
cancelling his exequatur before first bringing the matter to the
attention of the Government whose agent he was.
I am instructed, therefore, to inform you that the act of your
Government in so abruptly withdrawing Mr. Behrmann’s exequatur
without the customary communication to my Government, whose agent he
was, imports a degree of discourtesy which my Government would be
reluctant to deem intentional, and in view of which I have to
request further explanation.
I take, etc.,
[Inclosure
2.—Translation.]
The Secretary of Foreign
Relations to Minister Furniss.
Port au Prince, March 23, 1906.
Mr. Minister: By your dispatch No. 35, of
March 16, you have kindly made known to me that your Government does
not consider the withdrawal by my Government of the exequatur of Mr.
Behrmann as a friendly act.
In acknowledging the receipt of that communication I beg you to
believe that this Government, in taking against the American
vice-consul at Cape Haitien the measure that forms the subject of
your above-mentioned letter, had no wise the idea of offending a
friendly nation with which it has always endeavored to entertatin
the most frank and sincere relations.
Convinced that you will not fail to transmit to the Government of the
United States of America this faithful expression of our sentiments
toward it.
I take, etc.,
