I have had several interviews with Dr Paul since I sent my note, and he
assures me that he intends to study very carefully all the cases as they
are now presented in your instructions to me, a copy of which was
inclosed with my note, and that there will be no undue delay in his
answer.
[Inclosure
2.—Translation.]
The Minister for Foreign
Affairs to Minister Russell.
United States of Venezuela,
Ministry of Foreign
Affairs,
Caracas, April 6,
1907.
Sir: I have received your excellency’s note
of the 30th of last month, in which you inform me that your
Government has instructed you to call the attention of the
Government of Venezuela to five special cases in which American
citizens claim redress, and to ask from this Government an immediate
consideration of said cases as presented in a communication to your
excellency from his excellency, Elihu Root, Secretary of State,
dated the 28th of last February, and a copy of which, consisting of
50 pages of typewritten English, accompanied your excellency’s
note.
Your excellency observes that your Government has devoted
considerable time to a very serious and careful reexamination of all
these cases, and that in the new and” fuller light in which they are
now again presented I can not fail to take the favorable action in
each case that your Government expects.
From a cursory examination I have made at first view of the five
cases referred to in your excellency’s note, and in that of his
excellency the Secretary of State, I have noted that for the first
time are presented for the study and consideration of my Government
the arguments in the two claims called
[Page 798]
“Orinoco Corporation” and “Crichfield” and
there is no former communication concerning them on record in this
ministry.
In regard to the other three cases—” Jaurett,” “Orinoco Steamship
Co.” and “New York & Bermudez Co.”—which your excellency
mentions as having been reexamined by the Government of the United
States, devoting for this purpose considerable time in order to
present them, as it is now done, in a new and fuller light, I must
call your excellency’s attention to a fact very worthy to be taken
into consideration, viz, that from the end of 1904 until March,
1905, these same three claims were actively pressed by your
excellency’s predecessor, Mr. Herbert W. Bowen, the Government of
Venezuela contending that the decisions in said cases were in
conformity to principles that safeguarded the sovereignty and
independence of the courts of justice of the Republic, to the
exercise of its rights as a nation, and to the strict observance of
international obligations of mixed commissions whose decisions it
was agreed should be definite and inappealable.
This diplomatic discussion ended March 23, 1905, when answer was made
from this ministry to the note of the 19th of the same month and
year from your excellency’s predecessor, Mr. Herbert W. Bowen, who
presented with his note a copy of instructions from his excellency
Mr. John Hay, then Secretary of State of your excellency’s
Government.
Since the above-mentioned date, March 23, 1905, my Government had
received no declaration on the part of that of your excellency to
indicate its purpose to insist on said claims as included in the
inclosure with your excellency’s note, and for that reason it was
considered that diplomatic discussion in regard to them was
fundamentally closed.
Since the Government of the United States has presented these claims
again, and as your excellency states in a new and fuller light, my
Government proposes to consider carefully the new phase of the
aforesaid three cases, and the grounds on which the Government of
your excellency relies to introduce the other two cases—that of the
Orinoco Corporation and that of Crichfield.
As soon as this ministry can acquaint itself fully with all the
antecedents in the cases and with all the voluminous mass of
documents which it must examine I will hasten to transmit a reply to
your excellency.
I avail, etc.,
