[Inclosure.]
Minister Beaupré to the Minister for
Foreign Affairs.
America Legation,
The
Hague, May 15,
1910.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the
receipt of your excellency’s courteous note of the 10th instant,
directions du protocole et politique No. 9197, in reply to my No.
298, of the 2d instant, in which your excellency has expressed the
approval of the Netherlands Government of the proposed protocol
additional to the convention relative to the establishment of an
international court of prize signed at The Hague October 18, 1907.
At the same time, your excellency states that the Queen’s Government
finds it preferable that this proposed protocol be submitted to the
powers signatory of the prize court convention by the Government of
the United States of America, without the intermediation of the
Government of the Netherlands, although the latter Government has no
objections, if the United States think best, to acting as
intermediary. Your excellency also makes clear to me that it would
scarcely be materially possible to set, as the date for the signing
of the proposed protocol, a date so early as the 25th proximo, and
suggests that, in view of the fact that the Netherlands Government
itself would be unable to ratify the protocol before the 30th of
June, the date tentatively mentioned in my note, a day after the
15th of next September be set for the signing of the protocol, and
that the deposit of the ratifications, both of the protocol and of
the convention relative to the establishment of an international
court of prize, be postponed to a date to be fixed later; in any
case, however, before June 30, 1911.
I have to advise your excellency that I at once communicated both the
contents of this note and the purport of my conversation with your
excellency of the 12th instant to my Government by telegraph. I am
now instructed by my Government to modify my note of the 2d instant
in the following particulars: The Government of the United States
desires to reiterate its request that the Queen’s Government
transmit the proposed additional protocol, a copy of which was
inclosed in my No. 298 of the 2d instant, to the signatories of the
convention relative to the establishment of an international court
of prize, together with an appropriate circular note addressed to
the powers concerned. A date suggested by your excellency for the
signature of the additional protocol, either the 15th of next
September or a day near that date, would be entirely satisfactory to
my Government. While my Government prefers an early date for the
deposit of the ratifications, that the prize court may be enabled to
go into operation during the coming year, and while my Government
hopes that some day in January or, at latest, February of next year
may be set for the deposit of the ratifications, I am instructed to
defer wholly to the preferences of the Queen’s Government in the
matter of the date to be agreed upon for the deposit of the
ratifications of the additional protocol and of the convention
relative to the establishment of an international court of prize. I
only venture to suggest to your excellency that it might serve a
practical purpose to name, at least tentatively, in the circular
note a date which may seem appropriate to your excellency for the
deposit of the ratifications of the two instruments. In other
respects my note of the 2d instant requires no modifications to meet
the views of your excellency’s Government.
With the hope that this arrangement of time may be pleasing to your
excellency, and that the Government of the Queen may be willing to
serve as intermediary in this matter, I avail, etc.,
