File No. 881.00/588.
The French Ambassador to the Secretary of State.
Washington, November 4, 1914.
Mr. Secretary of State: In continuation of previous communications, the last being the letter of July 16 last from the Chargé d’Affaires of France, relative to the claims in Morocco preferred by the Federal Government which it thought had better be settled before extraterritorial rights were relinquished, I have the honor [Page 922] to inform your excellency that the result of the latest inquiries prescribed by my Government concerning those claims has just been made known to me and I deem it my duty to impart it to you as follows:
First, in regard to the Werschkul case, it appears from the investigation that the claim formulated in his memorandum of May 7 last by the representative of the United States at Tangier that it was settled as early as the following month of June. The deeds of sale were straightened out at that time.
On the other hand, as to Mr. Werschkul’s being given possession by his common law native vendor, the case is one that involves Mr. Werschkul and his vendor on one side and the German agent on the other. Until lately it was for the native from whom Mr. Werschkul held his rights to sue for the execution of the judgment rendered against his opponent the German agent before the Consular Court of that nationality at Casablanca and the Protectorate authorities were quite ready to facilitate when the time came, the formalities required to enable the vendor provided of course that he had previously secured an exequatur of the appellate judgment to give possession to Mr. Werschkul.
The war declared by Germany on France having brought German protégés under the operation of the common law, the execution of the judgment is now a matter for the local authority alone to which the party concerned need only apply for a prompt and final settlement of his case.
Second, in regard to the Vacuum Oil Company’s claim touching some land it purchased from one Ben Sauda and which it is said the Moorish authorities will not allow to be sold because of the land being Habou property, the Legation of the United States declared in a memorandum on the case that it could not consider any settlement bearing on Habou property to be applicable to its citizens and proteges before the forms required by Article 63 of the Act of Algeciras had been complied with.
But in the opinion of the Government of the Republic the treaties of 1880 and 1906 could not bar the Shereefian Government from amending or perfecting thereafter the laws and regulations existing at the time of the signature of those treaties. Article 63 cited by the Legation of the United States can hardly be invoked in this particular case since it deals with the examination of titles to Habou property occupied under certain conditions by foreigners in 1906 and the present case is that of land purchased in 1913 by the Vacuum Oil Company upon which there seems to lie certain Habou rights.
It can hardly be doubted under the circumstances that the case in dispute is that of a land transaction which if it does partially or wholly, concern the Habou administration, must be settled with proper regard to the existing regulations governing Habou cases.
The Protectorate Government has nevertheless asked the Habou Department to institute a thorough investigation of the case and the Legation of the United States has been so informed.
As to the various other questions, most of them of very little account (loss of an ox in 1911, the Benatuil case which can only be settled in accordance with the existing law; theft, the existence of which is not admitted, supposed to have been committed to the detriment of an American citizen, a money changer by trade, bearing the [Page 923] name of Mohamed ben Ali, bags of sugar, ten in number, lost at Larrash, that is to say in the Spanish zone, etc.) the Acting Agent and Consul General of France at Tangier has opened negotiations with the representative of the United States in that city with a view to reaching the earliest possible friendly settlement of these few questions.
The Government of the Republic would fain believe that on the strength of the foregoing statements which, added to those previously submitted, are sufficient proof of the sincere readiness of the French authorities to bring without delay all these cases to a legitimate termination, the Government of the United States will kindly as it has repeatedly and lastly on July 24 last intimated to the Embassy, make a favorable answer to the requests I have had the honor to present as early as last year, and to the effect that the Government of the United States agrees, as has already been done by several European Governments, to the abrogation so far as it is concerned, of the Capitulations in Morocco wherever the Government of the Republic has organized French courts.
Be pleased [etc.]