511.4 C 1/31a
The Secretary of State to President Coolidge
The President: The undersigned, the Secretary of State, has the honor to lay before the President with a view to its transmission to the Senate to receive the advice and consent of that body to ratification, if his judgment approve thereof, a certified copy of the Convention Relating to the Liquor Traffic in Africa which was signed at Saint Germain-en-Laye on September 10, 1919 on behalf of the United States, Belgium, the British Empire, France, Italy, Japan and Portugal. This Convention has been ratified by all the signatory powers with the exception of the United States and Italy.
The purpose of the Convention is to continue the struggle against the dangers of alcoholism to African natives through the prohibition of the importation of trade spirits and of beverages injurious to health into the territories in Africa under the control of the Contracting Parties, excepting Algiers, Tunis, Morocco, Libya, Egypt and the Union of South Africa and into islands lying within 100 nautical miles of the coast; by the imposition of heavy duties on the importation of other distilled beverages into those territories; and by the prohibition of the manufacture of distilled beverages in the same regions and of the importation and possession of distilling apparatus. Certain exceptions are made in regard to pharmaceutical alcohols required for medical, surgical or pharmaceutical establishments and for distilling apparatus for similar uses.
[Page 427]- Article 7 of the Convention provides for the establishment of a Central International Office placed under the control of the League of Nations, for the purpose of collecting and preserving documents exchanged by the Contracting Parties, pertaining to the application of certain provisions of the Convention. This Article also requires that each of the Contracting Parties shall publish an annual report showing the quantities of spirituous beverages imported or manufactured in the territories concerned and the duties levied and that a copy of this report shall be sent to the Central International Office and to the Secretary General of the League of Nations. The provisions of Article 7 obviously would have no application to the United States.
- Article 8 provides that in the event of any dispute arising between parties to the Convention relating to the application of the Convention which cannot be settled by negotiation, the dispute shall be submitted to an arbitral tribunal in conformity with the Covenant of the League of Nations. As this country is not a member of the League of Nations, it is suggested that in giving its advice and consent to ratification the Senate may desire to make a reservation providing for arbitral reference to some other tribunal.
The United States is a party to the Convention for the Regulation of the Importation of Spirituous Liquors into certain regions of Africa, signed at Brussels on June 8, 1899, and to the Convention signed at Brussels on November 3, 1906, revising the duties imposed by the Brussels convention of June 8, 1899.55 Chapter VI of the Act of Brussels of July 2, 1890, for the repression of the African slave trade,56 to which the United States is also a party, provides for the restriction of traffic in spirituous liquors.
The first paragraph of Article 11 of the Convention Relating to the Liquor Traffic in Africa, signed at Saint Germain-en-Laye on September 10, 1919, which is the subject of the present report, abrogates the provisions of former general international conventions relating to the matters dealt with in the present convention insofar as they are binding between the powers which are parties to the present convention. Such provisions of those international acts are therefore no longer in force between Belgium, the British Empire, France, Japan and Portugal although they are still in force as respects the United States.
While the present Convention would in its application impose definite obligations only upon States having colonial possessions in Africa, it is in harmony with the attitude of the United States with respect to the liquor traffic in Africa as expressed in the earlier conventions. [Page 428] It is believed that this Government should continue to give its moral support to efforts to safeguard the natives of Africa from the dangers of uncontrolled liquor traffic. By ratification of the present Convention it would place its relationship to those matters on the basis now subsisting between Belgium, the British Empire, France, Japan and Portugal in place of the provisions of the older acts which have been so largely abandoned. It is recommended, therefore, that the Senate be requested to give its advice and consent to ratification of the Convention, subject to a reservation in respect of the arbitration of disputes.
Accordingly, it is recommended that, if this course meets with your approval, the Senate be requested to take suitable action advising and consenting to ratification of the Convention of 1919 Relating to the Liquor Traffic in Africa subject to a reservation that the United States reserves the right to submit any dispute in which it may be concerned, relating to the application of the Convention, by agreement with the other parties and in accordance with the constitutional procedure of each State to a court of arbitration constituted in accordance with The Hague Convention of October 18, 1907,57 or to some other court of arbitration.
Respectfully submitted,
- For texts of treaties of 1899 and 1906, see Malloy, Treaties, 1776–1909, vol. ii, pp. 1993 and 2205.↩
- Ibid., p. 1964.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1907, pt. 2, p. 1181.↩
- Sent to the Senate May 22, 1928.↩