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[Enclosure—Extract]
Report on General Conditions Prevailing in
Salvador From November 16, 1925 to January 15, 1926
During the two months under review the negotiations for a Treaty of
Friendship, Commerce and Consular Rights with the Government of El
Salvador have been steadily progressing and are now practically
concluded.
In the latter part of November it looked for a while as if an
entirely new element were to be injected into the negotiations by
the request of the Minister of Foreign Affairs that there be
inserted in the Treaty a provision similar to Article 18 of a treaty
between Germany and Mexico of December 5, 1882,30 which
limits diplomatic intervention to specific cases. It appears that
Article 6 of an Executive Decree of April 13, 1908, which was
approved by the Salvadorean National Assembly on May 7, 1908,
provides that every general treaty concluded between Salvador and
another country must contain such a clause. This Decree was
obviously issued for the benefit of the treaty which was then being
negotiated with Germany, for on the following day, April 14, 1908,
the treaty was signed,31 but by an
exchange of notes, also dated April 14, 1908, it was agreed that
Article 18 of the Treaty between Mexico and Germany of 1882 would be
adhered to.
[Page 936]
The Legation discouraged from the beginning any attempt to have such
a clause included in the proposed treaty with the United States and
upon receipt of the Department’s telegram No. 53 of December 3, 6
p.m.,32 I told
the President frankly that the Department would not accept it and
that we therefore need not discuss it any further. Shortly
thereafter the Minister of Foreign Affairs informed me orally that
his Government would not insist upon that point, especially as the
Decree of April 13, 1908, was no longer in force.
A number of minor amendments to various articles were also suggested
by the Salvadorean Government, some of which the Department
accepted. The most important of these were:
- (a)
- An addition to the last paragraph of Article 7 exempting
from the operation of that Article any treatment El Salvador
might accord to one or more of the Central American States,
so long as such treatment is not also accorded to any other
country;
- (b)
- The insertion of a clause in the first paragraph of
Article 26 to the effect that salvaged merchandise shall not
be exempt from payment of usual warehouse charges for
storage and expenses; and
- (c)
- Alterations in Article 19 so as to permit consular
officers not nationals of the appointing state to address
the authorities of the country where they are stationed for
the purpose of protecting the interests of the nationals of
the state by which they are appointed.
