881.00/1053
The Secretary of State to the French Ambassador ( Daeschner )12
Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt on June 2 of your note dated May 31, 1925, in which you inform me of an arrangement between the Governments of France, Great Britain and [Page 600] Spain to bring into operation on June 1, 1925, the convention signed by those Governments on December 18, 1923. You express the hope that this Government may welcome the installation of a rule, the provisions of which have, in the opinion of your Government, met with no fundamental objection by the Government of the United States.
In a note dated December 20, 1924, addressed to your predecessor, Mr. Hughes stated that upon receipt of satisfactory assurances on certain points which were discussed in the note, this Government would consider the possibility of suspending its extraterritorial rights in Tangier to the extent that they might appear to be adequately safeguarded by the proposed new regime. I consider assurances on the points raised in that note and satisfactory response to the two questions stated in the penultimate paragraph thereof to be essential to further consideration by this Government of the possibility of suspending extraterritorial rights in Tangier.
In the absence of such assurances and response, I regret to have to inform you that I can not acquiesce in the action which has been taken, and am under the necessity of making full reservation of all rights of this Government and its nationals, whether by virtue of custom or of conventional arrangement, which may be affected by any effort to bring into force the provisions of the convention of December 18, 1923.
Accept [etc.]
- The same, mutatis mutandis, to the Spanish Ambassador and the British Chargé.↩