711.42157 Detroit/67
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Canada (Robbins)
Sir: Reference is made to your despatch No. 372 dated February 2, 1934, File No. 715.5, transmitting a copy of note No. 9 dated February 2, 1934, from the Canadian Under-Secretary of State for External [Page 985] Affairs87 regarding dredging operations which the War Department of the United States is carrying on in the St. Clair River.
Copies of the Canadian note were brought to the attention of the Secretary of War. In his reply thereto, copy of which is enclosed,88 Mr. Dern raises no objection to the first two of the additional conditions given by the Canadian Government in the note of February 2, 1934, but, with regard to condition number three, providing for the consent of the engineers of the Dominion Department of Public Works for the removal of certain material in a section of the north channel, it is pointed out that this area lies entirely within the United States and that supervision by Canada over the use and development of this waterway by the removal of material therefrom is inadmissible except as a part of a reciprocal agreement for the joint control of the removal of material from the St. Clair River and its outlets.
You may communicate with the Canadian authorities in the sense of Mr. Dern’s letter.
Very truly yours,