File No. 711.0021/129a
The Secretary of State to the Minister in the Netherlands ( Garrett )2
Sir: In an instruction under date of May 29, 1915,3 you were authorized, by direction of the President, to propose to the Netherlands Government an arrangement with regard to the elimination of stipulations in the treaties concluded by the Government of the United States with the Government of the Netherlands on January 19, 1839, and May 23, 1878, respectively. Since it appears that the Netherlands Government finds itself unable to agree to this Government’s proposals, the Department desires that you address a note to the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the sense of the following:
Under instructions from my Government, I have the honor to give to the Netherlands Government on behalf of the Government of the United States the official notification contemplated by Article 6 of the treaty concluded by the Government of the United States with the Government of the Netherlands on January 19, 1839, whereby the operation of the treaty will terminate in accordance with its terms on ———.
[Page 4]As has been previously pointed out to the Government of the Netherlands, the application of the fundamental principles of the act of Congress approved March 4, 1915, to alien seamen within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, involved an abrogation of treaty provisions inconsistent therewith. The President, therefore, using the discretion which he considered was granted to him to interpret the act in the sense contemplated by Congress, authorized this Legation to propose an arrangement between the two Governments which would carry out the purposes of the act by the elimination of stipulations in the treaty of January 19, 1839, inconsistent with the act.
It has further been pointed out to the Netherlands Government that in case no satisfactory understanding could be arrived at for the abrogation of these stipulations, other provisions of the treaty remaining in effect, a solution of the matter could only be found in the denouncement of the treaty in its entirety. Since it appears that the Netherlands Government finds itself unable to acquiesce in the proposal submitted by my Government, the Government of the United States is under the necessity of denouncing the treaty in its entirety.
I have the honor to request that you be good enough to make acknowledgment to me of this notification.
Since the treaty by its Article 6 provides that it shall remain binding for 12 months following notice of denouncement, you will insert in your communication to the Foreign Office containing this notice a date for the termination of the treaty precisely one year after the date of your note.
I am [etc.]
- The same, mutatis mutandis, on the same date, to the Ambassador in Spain (No. 765), regarding treaty of July 3, 1902.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1915, p. 6, note 2; see also ibid., 1916, p. 33, note 2.↩