811.7353b W 52/101
The Ambassador in Great Britain (Harvey) to the Secretary of
State
London, April 20,
1923.
[Received April 30.]
No. 2273
Sir: With reference to my telegram No. 117, of
April 19, 5 p.m., 1923,79 I have the honor to forward herewith copy, in
triplicate, of the Foreign Office Note No. A 2051/319/45, of April 18,
1923, relative to the Azores cable situation.
I have [etc.]
For the Ambassador:
Post
Wheeler
[Enclosure]
The British Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs (Curzon) to the American
Ambassador (Harvey)
London, April 18,
1923.
No. A 2051/319/45
Your Excellency: On receipt of Your
Excellency’s note No. 593 of the 20th February last,80 I requested His Majesty’s Minister at Bogotá
to report on the present position of the waiver by the All-America
Cables Company of their exclusive rights in Colombia. Lord Herbert
Hervey replied on the 16th ultimo that the Colombian Government did
not consider that they had received formal notice of renunciation by
the cable company and that his United States colleague was informing
your government in order that action might be taken by the company.
In thus confirming the statement contained in my note of November
14th last81 to which you took exception, I have the
honour to make the following further observations respecting the
points mentioned in your note under reply and that of December 21st
last,82 in regard to which
there is still some disagreement between our two Governments.
- 2.
- I may perhaps be excused for not understanding the practice of
the United States Government in connection with the issue of
landing licenses (as suggested in paragraph 5 of your note of
[Page 284]
December 21st)
seeing that Mr. Norman Davis, when Under-Secretary of State, in
giving evidence before the Interstate Commerce Committee on
December 15th, 1920 (S. 4301, page 6)83 said that the authority of the
President to control the landing of a cable “has never been
specifically passed upon and determined by the court of last
resort”. The Committee, after hearing the evidence of Mr. Norman
Davis and others, reported a bill which was introduced in the
House of Representatives by Mr. J. Stanley Webster on May 18th
1921. Mr. Webster said, in part, referring to the attempt made
by the United States Government in the Federal Court for the
southern district of New York to restrain the Western Union
Company from landing their cable at Miami, “Judge Hand of that
Court seems to have held that there is no authority vested in
the President of the United States to control the matter of
cable landings especially where the case is one involving an
American company which has complied with the provisions of the
so-called post roads Act of July 24th, 1866. The case was
appealed to the circuit court of appeals for the second circuit
and the opinion of Judge Hand was affirmed. The United States
has appealed the case to the Supreme Court where it has been
fully presented and is now under submission for final decision.”
(Congressional Record May 20th[18th], 1921, p. 1592 [1541]).84 Consequently, with reference to
the last sentence of the same paragraph of your note, the
practice of the United States Government, so far as any judicial
decisions show, seems also to have been based on a
misunderstanding. The remainder of the debate on the occasion to
which I have referred, showed that the United States Government
urgently desired the passage of the bill lest the Supreme Court
should confirm Judge Hand’s decision (Congressional Record May 20th[18th], 1921, pp. 1545[1539] et seq.) and that one of the chief
objections to the Miami landing was that it would enable a
British company to “get into the United States” (Record pp. 1554 and 1555 [1550]).
- 3.
- The statement in paragraph 6 of your note of December 21st
that the cable from Brazil to Barbados was not laid until after
the landing at Miami had been opposed by the United States
Government is possibly somewhat misleading. The contention of
the Western Union Company, subsequently upheld in the Courts as
stated above, was that the State Department had no authority to
oppose the landing;
[Page 285]
even if it had such authority, the date on which its opposition
was officially manifested remained in dispute (see S. 4301). The
facts with regard to the cable itself are that the section to
Maranham was laid prior to July 1920: the remaining section was
on board the “Colonia”, which laid the Barbados-Miami Cable, and
therefore could not be laid till after the “Colonia” reached
Barbados from Miami. None the less the Western Company had long
been committed to the expenditure on the cable (see pages 107,
311, 312 of S. 4301), and, I venture to think, my original
proposition holds good, namely that the Company were faced with
the loss of an investment of three million dollars made in good
faith and in reliance upon the existing law of the United
States.
- 4.
- I have again referred at some length to the essential points
of the Miami incident because the statements contained in your
two notes required a careful re-examination of the facts upon
which His Majesty’s Government based their impression of the
attitude of the United States towards a British cable company. I
greatly regret that nothing transpires which would justify any
modification in the proposals contained in my note of November
14th last.
- 5.
- I observe, however, that your government consider “that if
American cable companies are able to establish a more efficient
service at better rates than their British competitors maintain,
they, and those who employ cables in the transaction of their
business, are entitled to the benefit of their enterprise, and
should not be deprived of them by artificial restrictions, such
as His Majesty’s Government propose to place on American
companies”. This statement seems to be based on a
misunderstanding, seeing that no proposal is being made to
restrict the normal control by the Portuguese Telegraph
Administration of the routing of unordered telegrams originating
in, or in transit through, its territory.
- 6.
- In this connection I would remind you that the Newfoundland
Government has recently concluded an agreement with one of the
United States companies competing with the British Imperial
cables for trans-Atlantic traffic, whereby all the unordered
traffic from Newfoundland for Great Britain and places beyond,
including the continent of Europe, is to be handed over to that
company for fifteen years. I presume the United States
Government are aware of this transaction and I should be glad to
learn in what way it differs in their opinion from the
arrangements at the Azores to which they object, except that at
the Azores the unordered traffic would be sent by British cables
and at Newfoundland by a United States cable.
- 7.
- In order that there may be no further misunderstanding with
regard to the attitude of His Majesty’s Government, I take this
opportunity
[Page 286]
to repeat
that they are quite willing to leave the matter to the
discretion of the Portuguese Government after free negotiation
between the British and United States companies, if the United
States Government is prepared to adopt that course.
I have [etc.]
