Office of the Historian

711.379/1

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Cuba (Crowder)

Washington, March 11, 1925.
No. 442

Sir: The Department refers to your despatch No. 968, dated January 8, 1925, to the Department’s instruction No. 420, dated February 2, 1925, and to your telegram No. 22, dated February 11, 1925, 1 P.M. concerning the negotiation by the United States and Cuba of a consular convention, a convention to suppress the smuggling of intoxicating liquors, narcotics, immigrants, and for other purposes, and a supplementary extradition convention providing for the extradition of persons charged with crimes and offenses against the laws for the suppression of the traffic in narcotics.

The Department has telegraphed you11 that it is prepared to negotiate a consular convention with Cuba if the Cuban Government will agree to conclude the proposed extradition and smuggling conventions mentioned in the Department’s instruction of February 2, 1925, and also conclude a convention with the United States to prevent the smuggling of intoxicating liquors similar to that concluded by the United States with Great Britain on January 23, 1924.

[Page 18]

With regard to the articles in a convention dealing with consular rights, the Department encloses copies of the articles on this subject, from the convention signed by representatives of the United States and Germany on December 8, 1923.12 On February 10, 1925, the Senate of the United States gave its advice and consent to the ratification of this convention with certain reservations which do not apply to the articles relating to consular rights.

In your despatch No. 968, dated January 8, 1925, you referred to a memorandum regarding consular administration which you had signed with Mr. Wilbur J. Carr, now Assistant Secretary of State. You stated that a treaty of a general character concerning Consuls was drafted by the Fourth Pan American Conference held at Buenos Aires in 1910 and you requested English copies of the treaty and of the memorandum signed by you. The Department encloses a copy of the report signed by you and Mr. Carr “Upon Uniformity of Customs Regulations, Consular Certificates, and Invoices and Port Charges”,13 which it is understood was prepared” in connection with the Pan American Financial Conference in 1915.14 As the memorandum does not cover the usual subject matters dealt with in a consular convention and as the Department has drafted, on very careful consideration, the articles on this subject in the convention with Germany, signed on December 8, 1923, copies of which are enclosed,12 it is believed that it would be inadvisable for you to make any further reference to the memorandum which you and Mr. Carr signed in continuing the discussion of the conclusion of a consular convention.

With regard to the proposed convention to suppress smuggling operations, you are informed that a similar convention, signed by the United States with Canada on June 6, 1924, was approved by the Canadian House of Commons on March 3, 1925.15

With regard to the proposed convention providing for extradition on account of crimes or offenses committed against the laws for the suppression of the traffic in narcotics, you are informed that on January 27, 1925, the Senate of the United States gave its advice and consent to the ratification of a similar Convention signed by the United States with Canada on January 8, 1925, and removed the injunction of secrecy from it. The Convention was approved by the Canadian House of Commons on March 3, 1925. Two copies of the convention are enclosed.16

With respect to the proposed convention for the prevention of smuggling of intoxicating liquors, the Department encloses two copies of [Page 19] the convention concluded by the United States with the British Government on January 23, 1924,17 dealing with this question. You are instructed to propose to the Cuban Government that a similar convention be concluded between the United States and Cuba. In making this proposal you will point out that Cuban vessels engaged in legitimate commerce would receive the advantages provided by Article III of the Convention.

For your confidential information it may be stated that the Department is informed that the following vessels operating under the Cuban flag are engaged in smuggling intoxicating liquors into the United States:

  • Andres Garcia
  • Bermeo
  • Expreso
  • Fantasma
  • G. H. Murray
  • Lucinda
  • Maria
  • Mary Beatrice
  • Mentonette
  • Parmeo
  • Paloma
  • Patria
  • Pepe Corcal ex Cardenas
  • Riviera
  • Yride.

You are instructed to telegraph the Department what the views of the Cuban authorities are with respect to these proposals.

I am [etc.]

Frank B. Kellogg
  1. Telegram not printed.↩
  2. Foreign Relations, 1923, vol. ii, p. 29.↩
  3. Not printed.↩
  4. Held in Washington, May 24–29, 1915; see Foreign Relations, 1915, pp. 20 ff. and p. 1310.↩
  5. Foreign Relations, 1923, vol. ii, p. 29.↩
  6. Ibid., 1924, vol. i, p. 189.↩
  7. Vol. i, p. 542.↩
  8. Foreign Relations, 1924, vol. i, p. 158.↩