Office of the Historian

File No. 7543/–1.

Minister Collier to the Secretary of State.

American Legation,
Madrid, June 19, 1907.
No. 358.]

Sir: I have the honor to inclose copy (with translation) of a law passed by the Cortes and approved by His Catholic Majesty on June 16, 1907, and published in the Gaceta of yesterday, June 18. It authorizes the minister of finance to pay the principal of the debt recognized by the convention of 1834 between the United States and Spain. Payment of the principal will put an end to a matter various phases of which have occupied much of the time and much of the attention of the department and of this legation for over seventy years. The extensive correspondence upon the subject, from 1834 to 1884, was collated and reprinted in Executive Document No. 129, House of Representatives, Forty-eighth Congress, first session.

In an informal and personal conversation which I had to-day with Señor Osma, minister of finance, he told me that the law was in a sense permissive and not mandatory; that it authorized him to pay the principal of the debt and that it was his intention to pay the principal in full when the next payment of interest fell due. He alluded to earlier propositions to convert the debt, and to remote ones involving a settlement by composition, but gave me to understand that the payment when made would be for the full amount of the principal of the debt.

I am, etc.,

Wm. Miller Collier.
[Inclosure.—Translation.]

law authorizing the minister of the treasury to pay the debt to the united states acknowledged in the convention of february 17, 1834.

Alfonso XIII, by grace of God and the constitution King of Spain.

To all those who may see and take notice of this be it known: That the Cortes has decreed and We have sanctioned the following:

Sole article. The minister of the treasury is authorized to pay the debt to the United States acknowledged in the convention celebrated with the Government of that nation February 17, 1834, giving account to the Cortes of the use which he may make of this authorization.

It will be understood that the necessary credit is given in an additional chapter of section 3 of the general obligations of the State (Obligaciones generales del Estado) of the present budget.

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Therefore:

We command all courts, justices, chiefs, governors, and other authorities, either civil or military or ecclesiastical, of any class or rank, that they observe and cause to be observed, fulfilled, and executed the present law in all its parts.

Done at San Ildefonso June 16, 1907.

I, the King.

The Minister of the Treasury:
Guillermo J. de Osma.