711F.1914/329
The Department of State to the Panamanian Embassy
Memorandum
Reference is made to the memorandum which the Ambassador of Panama handed to Mr. Welles on August 21, 1941 as the official statement of the Panamanian Government on the changes which Panamanian officials would like to see made in the Department’s memorandum of July 8, 1941 concerning the action which the Government of the United States is willing to take, subject to certain limitations, on each of the twelve points in the relations between the two Governments with respect to which positive action by the United States was requested.
This Government is pleased to accept those modifications of points 7 (Desire of the Panamanian Government that our military and Zone police be armed only with billies while in the territory of Panama) and 12 (The desire of the Panamanian Government for three gasoline or oil tanks at Balboa) which are suggested in the Ambassador’s memorandum. The proposal to use the phrase “Canal Zone–city of Colón” near the beginning of the second paragraph of point 2 (Railroad Lots in Panamá and Colón) is similarly acceptable.
Point 5 (Jurisdiction over roads and highways in Panamanian territory) it is felt should be modified to conform with those stipulations concerning jurisdiction which the two Governments will adopt in the lease agreement currently under negotiation.
In order to clarify this Government’s statement regarding point 1 (The waterworks at Colón and Panamá) of the Department’s memorandum of July 8, 1941, it should be pointed out that the turning over to the Government of the Republic of Panama of the physical [Page 467] properties of the water works and sewerage systems and the administration thereof, including the collection of the water rates does not in any way modify the existing arrangement for the responsibility of the public health services of the cities of Panamá and Colón as specified in the second paragraph of Article VII of the Convention between the United States of America and Panama, signed at Washington November 18, 1903. Thus the Republic of Panama will continue to pay only those costs of sanitary measures for which it has been responsible in the past.
This Government in continuing to maintain the health services in the cities of Panamá and Colón is confident that the Government of the Republic of Panama will fully cooperate with the appropriate Canal Zone officials in carrying out the agreement regarding increased participation of Panamanian personnel in sanitation activities in those cities as set forth in the exchange of notes accompanying the General Treaty of March 2, 1936, which in turn refer to the earlier proposal of October 1931.