811.114/1053
The Secretary of the Mexican Embassy (Téllez) to the Chief of the Division of Mexican Affairs, Department of State (Hanna)
My Dear Mr. Hanna: Pursuant to the notice which by your direction Mr. Keith18 was pleased to give me on the day immediately preceding over the telephone, on the morning of the 11th there was received at this Embassy by mail a mimeographed copy of a communication which seems to be dated the 7th of this month and which the Secretary of the Treasury, the Honorable A. W. Mellon, sent to the Secretary of State, His Excellency Charles E. Hughes, making known to him the instructions issued by His Excellency President Harding, concerning the ruling of the Honorable the Attorney General of the United States on the application to be made of the prohibition laws with regard to the service and transportation of alcoholic beverages within the territorial waters of the United States; these instructions direct that all foreign vessels which, carrying such beverages on board either as part of their cargo or as stores for the use of the crew, and having sailed from a foreign port after the 14th of this month, should arrive in North American territorial waters or ports, shall be regarded as having violated those laws.
The Department of Foreign Affairs, to which I duly communicated the tenor of the aforesaid provisions, finding the term set for its enforcement insufficient with regard to foreign vessels, has instructed me to formulate, as I now have the honor to do through you, a formal protest, since the shortness of the term set—even taking into consideration the short extension which was as it seems subsequently granted—will not permit of making the aforesaid provisions known to shippers and shipowners of the Republic sufficiently in advance to enable them to save their vessels which trade with United States ports from infringing the prohibitionary measures under consideration.
Begging you kindly to entertain this protest and to make note of the fact that in filing it the Embassy stands ready to act and make in due course such representations as may be justified by the enforcement, in so far as it affects vessels of Mexican registry, of the prohibitionary measures referred to in this communication, it affords me satisfaction to repeat myself [etc.].