839.51/4809
The Dominican Minister ( Pastoriza ) to the Secretary of State
Mr. Secretary of State: I have the honor to advise Your Excellency that the Dominican Government has given the most careful and thorough attention to the last proposal for the amendment of the Dominican-American Convention of 1924 which the Department of State submitted through this Legation, in reply to the note which I had the honor of addressing to Your Excellency on December 18, 1939,6 containing the last Dominican proposal for the amendment of the said Convention.
The Dominican Government, after having studied with the attention the case requires the proposal which the Department recently submitted to its consideration for the amendment of the said Convention, deeply regrets that the bases contained in the above mentioned [Page 799] note which I had the honor of addressing to Your Excellency on December 18, 1939, were not taken into account for the preparation of the new proposal whereby the United States Government endeavors to find a solution which would not injure any of the mutual interests which exist in this case and which at the same time would be in accord with the just aspirations of the Dominican Republic that the new international instrument which is concluded may not impair its rights as a sovereign nation nor render difficult the collaboration which in the economic aspect the Dominican Republic may be able to give to the principle of continental solidarity.
My Government deems, in fact, that the form and the bases proposed in the note of December 18, 1939, give full satisfaction, both to the interests of the bondholders, since the said plan tends to increase the guarantee which the Convention in force accords to them by affecting to the service of the foreign debt the total amount of the receipts of the Dominican Republic, which exceed twelve million dollars annually, and to the legitimate interest of the Dominican Government which, in proposing the solution of this case in the form indicated in the said note, had primarily under consideration the ethical and moral aspect of the unsettled problem between our two nations.
In order to recover its full sovereignty, seriously impaired by the Dominican-American Convention of 1924, the Dominican Government has not spared even the sacrifice of offering the whole of its fiscal revenues as a guarantee for the payment of its foreign debt, which constitutes a precious and undeniable evidence of its purpose to maintain and reinforce in the proposed solution the guarantee of the bondholders, in return for a simple conquest of a purely moral order; the disappearance of all the provisions of the Dominican-American Convention of 1924 which impair the sovereignty of the Dominican nation; hinder its full collaboration in the work of a continental character which is actuated by principles of American solidarity, and finally, conflict with the spirit of the Pan American policy which has today, in the illustrious President Roosevelt, one of its most eminent and sincere promoters.
The Dominican Government, sure that the form proposed in the note of December 18, 1939 conciliates all points of view and tends to solve the problem raised by the Convention of 1924 in a manner fully satisfactory to the bondholders and to our two countries, has instructed me to advise Your Excellency of its desire that the Department of State, in accordance with the spirit of fraternal understanding which has animated it at all times with respect to the solution of this problem, take into consideration the form and the bases proposed in the note already several times mentioned.
[Page 800]This request of the Government of my country responds to the desire to put the Dominican-American Convention of 1924 in harmony with the profound and sincere amity which now prevails in the relations between our two countries, wherefore it does not doubt that Your Excellency will examine it with the sincere interest and cordial sympathy with which you receive every effort intended to promote in America the spirit of international conciliation and more and more strengthen American solidarity.
I avail myself [etc.]