The Secretary of State to Minister Hill.
Washington, April 17, 1907.
(Minister Hill’s No. 206 is acknowledged. Article 60 of The Hague arbitration treaty says:
The conditions on which the powers who were not represented at the International Peace Conference can adhere to the present convention shall form the subject of a subsequent agreement among the contracting powers.
The Russian Government, in its note of April 12, 1906, has set out a copy of a proposed agreement under this provision and all the contracting powers have now assented to it. It provides that in case the States not represented at the First Conference shall “notify the Government of the Netherlands of their adhesion to the above-mentioned convention, they shall be forthwith considered as having acceded thereto.”
It is plainly unnecessary for the South American powers to enter into any new treaty with the Netherlands or with anyone else, except by a mere notice of adhesion. That notice must of course come either from the minister for foreign affairs direct or from some representative who has power to give the notice.)