File 838.516/55.
The information referred to in the last paragraph of the enclosed note
verbale, according to the statement made to me by Mr. Borno, Minister of
Foreign Relations, was received by him from Dr. Menos, Haitian Minister
to Washington.
I have [etc.].
[Inclosure—Note verbale—Translation.]
The Department of Foreign
Relations to Minister Blanchard.
Department of State for Foreign
Relations.
Port au Prince,
December 29, 1914.
The Department of Foreign Relations has the honor to inform the
Legation of the United States that the juge d’instruction, O. Leger,
having communicated to the Commissioner of the Government, for the
purpose of preparing a charge, the documents in the case of the
taking of the public funds perpetrated, December 17th, at the
National Treasury of the Republic, the commissioner has presented to
the Department of Justice a detailed report where he analyzed the
examinations of the director and high employees of the bank, charged
with the service of this Treasury. From these examinations it
appears as follows:
Mr. Emanuel Dryfus, accountant, in charge of the special account of
the withdrawal of paper money, declared to the juge d’instruction
that the deposit of gold pledged to this withdrawal amounted, on
November 30th last and until December 17th, to the sum of
$907,800.20 (dollars gold).
On his side, Mr. Henri Desrue, director of the bank, declared to the
juge d’instruction that of the deposit in question there remains at
this time a difference which amounts to $388,000 (dollars).
Comparing these two depositions of the director and accountant of
this Bank which, one cannot hold in too close attention, does the
service of the National Treasury, it follows with conclusive
evidence that the sum embarked on the Machias
on the 17th of December last, has been diverted or deducted from the
funds devoted to the withdrawal of paper money, that is to say, from
a fund which is the property not at all of the Bank, but of the
Haitian State, and which could not therefore go out of the Haitian
Treasury at Port au Prince except with the formal consent of the
Haitian Government.
The Department of Foreign Relations, from the beginning has expressed
to the Legation of the United States its absolute conviction that
the good faith of the Department of State has been abused.
And so the Haitian Government has learned without any surprise that
the Department of State has spontaneously decided in case its
information should reveal to it the legitimateness of our rights, to
cause the funds to be put back at Port au Prince in the cash of the
Haitian Treasury intrusted to the National Bank of the Republic of
Haiti.
