711.5221/18: Telegram
The Ambassador in Spain (Willard) to the Acting Secretary of State
2622. Department’s 2145 [2148], April 29, 7 p.m.65 Instructions therein contained were promptly communicated to Foreign Office and Embassy is just in receipt of reply thereto in which Minister for Foreign Affairs under date of today acknowledges receipt of this Embassy’s memorandum of the 1st instant giving reasons why the Government of the United States is unable to extend for a period of two months from May 8 the treaty under consideration. The Minister for Foreign Affairs states that the proposition to extend this treaty was formulated only for the object of giving the Spanish Government time in which to consider maturely the new questions presented by this Embassy in its note of April 11, questions which, he adds, cannot be decided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs alone but require examination and consideration by other Ministries of the Spanish Government. The Minister for Foreign Affairs then adds that it is his desire to demonstrate again to the Cabinet at Washington and to this Embassy the spirit of deference and cordiality of the Spanish Council of Ministers and in order to avoid that the relations stipulated in the treaty under consideration should fail to give a common and reciprocal benefit as stated in the preamble of the same, he has striven to obtain and has succeeded in obtaining from his colleagues authority to submit the following proposition.
“If Your Excellency withdraws in the name of your Government the denunciation of the Treaty of Friendship and Friendly [General] Relations between Spain and the United States of America signed in Madrid July 3, 1902, the Government of His Majesty will continue maintaining on its part in force the said agreement, it being understood that the articles 23 and 24 will be considered as repealed on account of their being in conflict with the American Seaman Act of March 4, 1915, although the other provisions of those two articles, especially those which refer to the detention and imprisonment of deserters from ships of war, shall continue in force. It is unnecessary to say that reciprocally the consular officers of the United States in Spain will not be able to exercise the faculties [powers] of which, by virtue of the partial revocation of the said articles 23 and 24, the consuls of Spain in the United States are deprived. Meanwhile the treaty between Spain and the United States and its articles 2, 7 and 8 remain in force and on the supposition that if, in this period, [Page 60] the Royal Order of April 7, 1915, should be repealed, that the treatment of coals and cokes proceeding from the United States will be based on the equality with the treatment between Spain and the most favored nation. It will be understood that in conformity with the terms of paragraph 3 of article 2 of the treaty, said article will not be construed as annulling the laws of either of the two contracting countries, but that they shall be applicable to all seamen [foreigners?] in general and therefore in the concrete case of the laws imposed on incomes in the United States and its regulations up to the present time, the Government of His Majesty will not insist in sustaining that they are contrary to the treaty. In the security that Your Excellency will appreciate the value of the authorization which has been conceded me by my colleagues and the motive that guides it, I do not doubt I will receive the retirement [withdrawal?] of the notice before the 8th of May and in that security I have the honor to reiterate, and so forth.”