711.3721/—
The Ambassador in Cuba (Crowder) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 13.]
Sir: I have the honor to report to the Department that quite recently the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba approached this [Page 15] Embassy as to the advisability of negotiating a Consular Treaty between the two countries. In the conversation which ensued I invited his attention to the fact that a Treaty of this general character had been drafted by the Fourth Pan-American Conference, held at Buenos Aires in 1910;4 that subsequent thereto I had signed, with Mr. Wilbur Carr now Assistant Secretary of State, a memorandum on this general subject; and that I was unaware whether the said Treaty had been ratified by any of the twenty-one [sic] Republics participating in said conference, or as to the action taken on the memorandum above referred to.
I respectfully request that the Embassy be furnished English copies (not procurable here) of said Treaty and memorandum and, likewise, information as to whether the Department deems it opportune at this moment to enter upon negotiations with the Cuban Government of the character referred to. I was a member of the Fourth Pan-American Conference in 1910 and of the Committee thereof which dealt with consular administration of the several countries. I recall the wide diversity as to consular requirements respecting shipments which the study of the Committee revealed and likewise the urgent necessity which, in the minds of the Committee, existed for a Treaty which would introduce greater uniformity in this regard.
I have [etc.]
- No consular treaty appears to have been drafted at the Fourth International Conference of American States; see 4th paragraph of Department’s instruction No. 442, Mar. 11, 1925, to the Cuban Ambassador, p. 17. For correspondence concerning the Fourth International Conference, see Foreign Relations, 1910, pp. 12 ff.↩