711.5221/18: Telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Spain ( Willard )

2156. Your 2622, May 3, noon.

You will address a note to the Minister of Foreign Affairs textually as follows:

“I have the honor to inform Your Excellency that I communicated to my Government the contents of your note of May 3, 1919 in reply to my note of April 11, 1919, regarding the conditions upon which my Government would agree to withdraw the notice of termination of the Treaty of Friendship and General Relations, concluded July 3, 1902 between United States and Spain. It is the understanding of my Government that these conditions are agreed to by the Spanish Government in your note of May 3, 1919. In order to accede to the wishes of the Spanish Government, set forth in the note of the Spanish Ambassador at Washington to my Government, dated February 12, 1919, I have the honor hereby on behalf of the Government of the United States to withdraw the notice of termination of the Treaty of Friendship and General Relations concluded between the United States and Spain, on July 3, 1902, except as to Articles 23 and 24, which shall be regarded by both Governments as abrogated in so far as these Articles are in conflict with the Act of March 4, 1915 (38 Stat. L. 1164), such abrogation being effective from July 1, 1916, while the other provisions of these two Articles, especially those concerning the arrest, detention, and imprisonment of deserters from war vessels shall continue in force, the withdrawal of the notice of termination of this treaty being expressly upon the condition that, in the event that the Spanish Government shall revive the transport tax on coal imposed by the law of July 20, 190066 or shall enact new legislation of similar kind, treatment will [Page 61] be accorded by revised law to coal and by any new law to passengers and cargoes in either direction between the United States and Spain upon an equality with the treatment of coal and passengers and cargoes between Spain and the most favored nation as long as this treaty between the United States and Spain or Articles 2, 7 and 8 thereof shall remain in force and upon the further express condition that neither the income tax laws of the United States nor their administration constitute any violation of the provisions of this Treaty.

I shall be pleased to receive your formal acceptance on behalf of the Government of Spain of this notice of withdrawal which will be regarded as an acceptance of the conditions upon which it is made.”

Your 2622 received badly garbled and Department is not sure that the Foreign Minister’s note responds in all respects to your note of April 11, 1919. In particular the matter of “passengers and cargoes in either direction between the United States and Spain” seems not to be referred to by the Foreign Minister. It has been necessary therefore to formulate the notice of withdrawal as set forth above, in order that the acceptance thereof which is specifically requested may be regarded as concurrence in the conditions on which the withdrawal is made.

Polk
  1. For correction of date of law, see p. 65.