File No. 311.6253N811/2
[Enclosure—Translation]
The German Foreign
Office to the Swiss Legation at
Berlin
No. IIIa–10398–88033
Note Verbale
The Foreign Office thanks the Swiss Legation for the text of the
Urgent Deficiency Bill and the declaration of the Alien Property
Custodian enclosed in note verbale No. A.V.
Gen. 4/22678 of the 18th of this month.
[Page 308]
The German Government must protest against the addendum to the
Trading with the Enemy Act of October 6, 1917, in the Urgent
Deficiency bill, which empowers the President of the United States
to dispossess the North German Lloyd and the Hamburg-American Line
of their establishments in New Jersey. The condition put upon the
dispossession which is left to the discretion of the President, that
it shall be necessary for the national security and defence, cannot
be accepted as a valid ground for such rule, since the above-stated
ground can always justify a seizure for use during the war but not a
lasting acquisition of the property. Supposing it, however, to be a
valid ground, it should then be held, as it is against the German
companies, against all the other American and other steamship
companies and enterprises established at similar places. As this is
obviously not contemplated and the case is rather one of
discrimination against German private property, appended to the
Trading with the Enemy Act, the German Government must, in case the
President of the United States exercises the power conferred upon
him, see therein an attempt antagonistic to the spirit of the
treaties of 1785, 1799, and 1828, and in no wise warranted, to
shackle, through measures of force, the opportunities of German
shipping interests to develop in the future.
When farther on the amendment to paragraph 4 of section 12 of the
Trading with the Enemy Act of October 6, 1917, also contained in the
above-mentioned bill, vests the Alien Property Custodian with the
power of disposing of all the property in his care, money excepted,
to American citizens, there lies therein another measure consciously
aimed to do lasting injury to German economic existence, which is
not in the least affected in its contemplated operation by the
assuaging Alien Property Custodian’s declaration of March 28, of
this year.1 The German Government is constrained to repeat
what it said on the subject in its note
verbale IIIa–4532 of March 10, of this year;2 it again lays emphasis on the statement that
it cannot but be guided in the enforcement of the retaliatory orders
that have been issued against American property in Germany by the
manner in which the United States of America will proceed against
German property.
The Foreign Office would be thankful to the Swiss Legation if it
would make the foregoing known to its Government with a request to
communicate this protest of the German Government to the Government
of the United States of America through the Swiss Legation at
Washington.
