File No. 343/50.
The Acting Secretary of State to the German Chargé.
Washington, June 3, 1908.
Sir: Referring to your note of March 7 last and to the department’s reply of the 16th of that month, I have now the honor to advise you that the department has made investigation in regard to the circumstances under which one Paul O. Stensland was transported from Tangier to New York on the steamship Prinz Adalbert of the Hamburg-Amerika Line. The department directed the American consul general at Hamburg to make arrangements to have the Prinz Adalbert touch at Tangier to take on Stensland and his guards. [Page 355] The department’s cablegram was received by the consul general at 10 o’clock on the same day on which the Prinz Adalbert was scheduled to sail from Naples at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.
It seems that neither the American consul general at Hamburg nor the authorities of the Hamburg-American Line appear to have been aware that it was deemed necessary to obtain the assent of the German Government to the transportation of Stensland, under the peculiar circumstances surrounding his case. Moreover, the American consul general at Tangier reports that Stensland himself consented to be returned to the United States upon the Prinz Adalbert; and his transportation upon that vessel may therefore properly be regarded as having taken place of his free will. Nevertheless, the department regrets that, if through any oversight, any technical violation of the German law may have occurred; and it will bring to the attention of the United States consular officers concerned the views of the German Government as to the legal principles involved.
Accept, etc.,