890D.01/636: Telegram
The Consul at Beirut (Gwynn) to the Secretary of State
[Received 1:14 p.m.]
317. Reference my telegram No. 296, August 21, 10 a.m. I have received through the British Political Officer at Damascus and the British Legation at Beirut a note dated August 24 from the Syrian Minister for Foreign Affairs, an excerpt from which reads as follows:
“The Syrian Government have passed a measure in the form of a legislative decree ordaining that American institutions in Syria: missions, schools, hospitals et cetera, be exempted from the payment of all taxes and that taxes paid by all or some of these institutions in the past be reimbursed. The Syrian Government in taking this step have been animated by a spirit of friendship towards the United States the justice of whose claim they do not question.”
A copy of the note will go forward by the next pouch. The legislative decree has not yet appeared in the Syrian Journal Officiel nor was a copy sent to me. When it appears I will ask the American Mission to institute proceedings immediately to recover taxes in the past.