File No. 437.00/40.
The Acting Secretary of State to the American Chargé d’Affaires.
Washington, September 16, 1912.
Sir: The Department has received the Minister’s No. 335 of July 12 last, regarding the question of the arbitration of the so-called “insurrectionary claims” against the Cuban Government.
You are instructed to address a note to the Secretary of State of Cuba in reply to his note to the Legation of July 9, 1912, and say that “In view of the insistence with which the matter is being urged upon the attention of the Cuban Government, it is the conviction of the Government of the United States that the fundamental question which has arisen between Cuba and certain European nations as to the liability of Cuba for damages arising out of acts of the Cuban forces during the war of independence from 1895 to 1898, is of such a nature and gravity that it should forthwith be submitted for determination and settlement to the decision of an impartial international tribunal of arbitration, and that the Government of the United States trusts that this method of solution will be employed by the Governments concerned.
“Deeply interested in the welfare of Cuba and in any and all obligations which may be imposed upon the Cuban people, the Government of the United States will be glad to lend to the Government of Cuba all proper assistance not only in the matter of framing the protocol under which the questions involved in this controversy shall be submitted to arbitration but also in the matter of conducting later the actual proceedings before the tribunal.”
I am [etc.]