File No. 412.11/8.
The Secretary of State to the American Chargé d’Affaires.
Washington, August 17, 1911.
Sir: The Department has received your No. 734 of the 20th ultimo, transmitting a note in which the Foreign Office asks you whether it is desired that claims which have been presented by the Embassy be submitted to the Consultative Claims Commission, and requesting instructions for your guidance in answering the inquiry.
Regarding the commission established by the Mexican Government, you will advise that Government that in view of the rule of international law requiring claimants against a government to resort to local tribunals for remedy in the matter of the wrongs which they alleged, the Government of the United States could obviously have no ground to object to the establishment of any appropriate tribunal or the endowing of any existing tribunal with the authority to hear and pass upon claims of American citizens for losses sustained during the recent disturbed conditions in that country, providing access to the court is easy and prosecution of the claims before the court is not made unduly onerous. The Government of the United States, therefore, would be inclined in the first instance to refer its citizens to any appropriately constituted tribunal authorized to hear and determine their complaints.
Obviously it follows as a necessary corollary from the rules of international law stated above that should the American claimants feel that they had not received justice at the hands of such tribunals so constituted, to which they had in good faith applied, it would be incumbent upon the Government of the United States to consider the measures it should take to correct any failure of any such tribunal to adjudge any given case in accordance with the principles of law and equity involved.
In view of these principles, American citizens will be instructed to present to and prosecute before the appropriately constituted tribunals any claims which they may have against the Government of Mexico and which may fall within the jurisdiction of such tribunals, the question of diplomatic representations in any given case being reserved for future consideration.
I am [etc.]