File No. 811.2222/12574
The Ambassador in Italy ( Page) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 1, 7.33 p.m.]
1787. Your 1495, 27th.2 Minister of Foreign Affairs communicates following:3 [Page 705]
Mr. Ambassador. In reply to the note No. 2060, that you addressed to me, dated the 13th instant,1 I have the honor to communicate to you as follows:
Relative to article 1 of the proposed convention for military service, I note with pleasure that the Government of the United States, acceding in part to the point of view of the Government of the King, is disposed to extend its application to Italians up to the age of 44 years. It would seem, however, preferable that for Italians in the United States there should be adopted a generic reference to the laws of the Kingdom, not differing from the formula now proposed by Your Excellency for citizens of the United States in Italy, thus returning in substance to the formula already proposed by Your Excellency in your note No. 1901, of the 9th January 1918.2
With reference to the colonies, the Royal Government of His Majesty has no objection to the convention being applied to Americans resident in Italian colonies, and to Italian citizens who, prior to going to the United States, might be resident in the territory of the same; only natives, the colonial subjects of the Kingdom, are actually exempt from military service obligations. Having settled in the above sense the previous communications on this subject, the insertion in the convention of any clause whatever regarding the colonial possessions seems superfluous.
As to article 4, the Royal Government, in order to please the Government of the United States, consents to its suppression; however, the Government of His Majesty the King would consider it preferable to keep the clause, it appearing more opportune to appreciate [anticipate] and resolve by common accord, rather than on one’s own account in the respective settlements, controversies to which the said article refers.
We have no objection to the modification of article 8 proposed by Your Excellency.
Finally, we cannot consider [have considered] it opportune to put in a clearer light, as indeed follows from the last clause of article 3, than the extra [that an explicit] reference to eventual exonerations, referred to in article 3, should be referred to in the first part of article 1 of the convention.
The Ambassador at Washington has been telegraphed to in the above sense. Sonnino.