211.31/31
The Minister in Venezuela (Cook) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 26.]
Sir: I have the honor to reply to the Department’s written instruction No. 802 of May 29, 1923 (File No. 211.31/30), in regard to the Instrument of Ratification by the Venezuelan Government of the Extradition Treaty between the United States and Venezuela and additional article thereto.
I respectfully state that in accepting and transmitting to the Department an Instrument which ratified only the Spanish text, I did not do so inadvertently. Two officials of the Venezuelan Foreign Office (one, the Chef du Protocol) brought the Instrument of Ratification to this Legation to compare it with our Instrument of Ratification. At that time I promptly called their attention to the fact that their Instrument was only in Spanish, while ours incorporated both the English and Spanish texts, and that my instructions required that the Instrument which I should accept [Page 1255] for transmission to Washington should incorporate both the English and Spanish texts. These official representatives of the Venezuelan Foreign Office assured me, however, that it was not their custom to incorporate any other than the Spanish text and they cited as examples treaties with Great Britain and with Italy. Moreover, on the day of going to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs to exchange ratifications, I again officially stated that the Instrument which the Venezuelan Government was furnishing me should incorporate both the English and Spanish texts, and they again, after a consultation in the Foreign Office, assured me that it was not the practice of Venezuela to use other than the Spanish text in the Instrument of Ratification.
I have the honor to add that when conforming with the Department’s instructions in returning today the Venezuelan ratification of the Spanish text, to obtain in substitution therefor an instrument of ratification by Venezuela incorporating the English as well as the Spanish text, the Foreign Office again repeated the statement that it was not their practice to include other than the Spanish text; and I had to inform them that it was absolutely necessary that the Instrument of Ratification contain both texts.
I have [etc.]