File No. 2624/15—16.
The Acting Secretary of State to the British Ambassador.
Washington, September 23, 1909.
Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note No. 238, of the 7th instant, in which, with reference to the fact, as stated, that British protectorates are not, strictly speaking, British dominions, and that, consequently, the British extradition acts are not the municipal law of such territories, you advise the department that the absence of the necessary legal machinery has so far precluded the surrender of fugitive criminals between British protectorates and foreign States and their dependencies, and add that, to remedy this state of affairs, special legislative enactments have now been passed in the various British protectorates on the African Continent, of which a list is inclosed with your note, and that local notices have been issued that they will be applicable to the United States.
[Page 288]Your note explains, however, that the natives of these protectorates are not by the mere fact of birth within their limits British subjects, and that consequently the provisions in the treaties which His Majesty’s Government has concluded, and which in some cases altogether preclude and in others leave the surrender of nationals optional, would not, in the absence of some specific understanding, apply in strictness to natives. It appears, however, that His Majesty’s Government contemplates assimilating the position of natives to that of British subjects for the purposes of these treaties, and that they apprehend that the Government of the United States will readily assent to this course.
In reply I have the honor to say that the department has taken due note of the contents of your note and of the intimation therein contained that acknowledgment of the note is to be considered sufficient to give due effect to the understanding without any further formality.
With reference to the statements in your note regarding the surrender of native inhabitants under this arrangement, the department avails itself of this opportunity to observe that it would appear that the Government of the United States is in nowise concerned with that feature of the proposed arrangement, since the extradition treaties existing between the United States and Great Britain contain no limitations with respect to the surrender of nationals of either country, and since the uniform practice followed by both the United States and Great Britain has been to surrender each to the other all persons fugitive from the justice of the one or the other, found within the limits of the other.
I have, etc.,