811f.244/98
The Minister in Panama (South) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 29.]
Sir: I have the honor to inform the Department that Señor J. D. Arosemena, the Panaman Secretary of Foreign Relations, has addressed to me a note2…
. . . . . . .
I subsequently received from the Secretary of Foreign Relations Note No. 646 of April 11, 1929, enclosing again copies of the proceedings instituted by the Inspector of the Port, Chief of the National Guard of Colon, in connection with sales made by the Cristobal commissary, at the instance of the British Consul in Colon, to three officers of the English ship Tritonia and requesting that such “permits” should not be recognized as valid in future. Copies and translations of this note and its enclosures are transmitted herewith.3 It is observed that the note in its final form also omitted the reference to the Convention of 1903.4
From the proceedings of the Inspector of the Port of Colon above-mentioned, it is noted that the English ship’s officers were arrested in Colon for having made purchases in the commissaries and that they laid the responsibility on the British Consul who had directed them; that the British Consul was summoned and admitted having sent them to the Canal Zone commissary “without telling them that such sales were limited by a treaty in force between the American and Panaman Governments;” and that the Inspector of the Port refers in conclusion to “the innocence of the accused and the offense committed by the commissary.”
I enclose also a copy of my note of acknowledgment, No. 932 of April 13, 1929,3 in which I stated that the matter would be brought to the attention of the authorities of the Panama Canal.
[Page 721]Finally there are enclosed herewith copies of my letter of April 15, 1929 to the Governor of the Panama Canal, and of his reply of April 19, 1929, together with the enclosure in the latter of a letter in this connection, dated April 1, 1929, addressed by the Executive Secretary of the Panama Canal to the Secretary of Finance of Panama.5
As the Department may desire me to take this occasion to make a formal statement of American rights in respect to the conduct of the commissaries in the Canal Zone, I respectfully request instructions and shall await instructions before again addressing the Secretary of Foreign Relations in the premises.
I have [etc.]