839.00/2592: Telegram
The Commissioner in the Dominican Republic (Welles) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received 2:44 p.m.]
17. Department’s September 7, 5 p.m. The members of the Commission propose the following substitute for the reservation contained in the Department’s telegram above referred to, to be added at the end of article I of the convention:
“subject, however, in accordance with the generally accepted rules and principles of international law, to the right of diplomatic intervention if those courts should be responsible for cases of notorious injustice or denial of justice; the determination of such cases, should the two Governments disagree, to be effected by arbitration.”
It is the intention of the members of the Commission in stipulating the right of the Dominican Government to resort to arbitration in the event of a possible disagreement between the two Governments, to assure the Dominican people that diplomatic intervention by the United States will not result in armed demonstrations as has so often resulted here from diplomatic intervention by European nations.
The members of the Commission appreciate the necessity of including the reservation proposed by the Department in article I. The substitute has been offered as a means of assuring the rights of arbitration and in order, also, that the Department’s reservation may not be worded in a manner which would give the opponents of the plan a pretext which they might use as a means of strengthening popular opposition. I trust that this substitute may be approved.
Publication of the plan now depends solely upon the Department’s cable instructing me whether this proposed substitute is acceptable.