File No. 881.00/576.
The French Ambassador to the Secretary of State.
Washington, April 22, 1914.
Mr. Secretary of State: Referring to the oral communications by which I made known to the Department of State the views of my Government in respect to the remarks contained in your excellency’s note of February 13, last, about Morocco, I have the honor, in compliance with instructions I have received, to remind you of the high value we should attach to the United States Government’s relinquishing, together with its consular courts, its extraterritorial privileges in the French Zone of the Shereefian Empire.
Your excellency’s note above mentioned held out the prospect that the United States would accede to our request and record its accession in due and proper form but pointed out a certain number of topics as to which favorable assurances were requested.
As to the matter of form, my Government wishes me to submit to your excellency the enclosed draft of declaration which in its opinion fits the situation that is to be cleared. I am told that the declaration has already been signed by the Russian and Spanish Governments and that other adhesions are forthcoming.
As to the several points mentioned in your excellency’s note I may, as I have already done by word of mouth, assure you that the Government of the Republic is quite ready to settle in the most friendly spirit the questions of interest to the United States in Morocco that may still be pending.
Among these, that of the protégés naturally ceases to be of any practical importance to the Powers that agree to recognize our new courts, the tertib tax being, besides, already paid by foreigners.
As to the right of aliens to own real estate, it has not been restricted by any Shereefian regulations. All that has been done was to take a few urgent measures having relation to strategy or prompted by the necessity of checking speculation in land intended for public use.
The complaint of the “Vacuum Oil Co.” against the customs treatment accorded to its products had not been brought by the party [Page 915] concerned or the representative of its country to the notice of my Government, which deems it its duty in this respect to recall that the treaties in force guarantee equal fiscal treatment to all the Powers and that they may be sure that nothing will be overlooked to let their nationals enjoy the full benefit of those advantages.
My Government indulges the hope that under the conditions I have just brought to mind and in view of its firm intention to examine and settle in an entirely friendly way the few questions yet unsettled in which American citizens are interested, your excellency will kindly coincide in the views I have just had the honor to submit to you. Your acceptance of these propositions would be particularly gratifying to the Government of the Republic, which would take it as fresh evidence of the traditional friendship existing between our two countries.
Be pleased to accept [etc.]