811.114/1441
The Spanish Ambassador (Riaño) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 11, 1923.]
Mr. Secretary: In having the honor to answer the Department of State’s note verbale, dated the third instant, announcing that on [Page 134] and after the tenth of June next no vessel either national or foreign will be allowed to enter territorial waters of the United States with alcoholic beverages on board, I take the liberty of reminding Your Excellency of the contents of my note of October 20, 1922,2 in which I pointed out the particular situation in which the new regulations place the vessels of some of the Spanish companies whose transit service will be so affected as to possibly compel them to do away with them entirely thereby causing enormous and unwarranted injuries. Apart from the statements which I made to Your Excellency on that occasion, I am now, by special direction of my Government, protesting against the prohibition laid upon Spanish vessels carrying alcoholic beverages for ship consumption or intended for other countries to enter or cross territorial waters of the United States.
Neither the spirit of the Treaty between Spain and the United States, nor the universally accepted principles of international law in any way permit of such measures being adopted as they encroach upon the sovereignty of Spain over her ships.
I trust that Your Excellency will consider the justice of this protest and will attend to it in the same friendly spirit by which I have always been animated and to which Your Excellency has responded.
I avail myself [etc.]