[Inclosure.—Translation.]
The Minister for Foreign
Affairs to the Dean of the
Diplomatic Corps.
Ministry of Foreign Relations,
Caracas, January 21, 1906.
Mr. Minister: In advising your excellency
of the receipt of your note of yesterday, the 20th, I am charged by
the constitutional President of the Republic to say to you the
following, so that your excellency can bring it to the knowledge of
the diplomatic corps:
When the Government of Venezuela, in conformity with its former note,
wished to avoid a categorical reply concerning the matter which was
the motive of your excellency’s note, it was wishing and did in
effect wish to give a proof of great deference and extreme courtesy
toward the resident representatives of friendly governments in
Venezuela, avoiding entering with them into the bottom of an affair
which did not merit the diplomatic character which had been given it
and the false situation in which the said diplomatc corps would be
placed. The Venezuelan Government, obliged then by your excellency’s
second note to take up the question, the Government of the Republic
hastens at once to make the preliminary declaration for the reasons
noted; it excused itself from having to treat with the honorable
diplomatic corps such a disagreeable question without signifying
that this chancellerie would not be ready and pleased to give to
each one in particular of the representatives of friendly
governments the explanations which in such cases are part of
international
[Page 1455]
courtesy
and of good friendship with the governments with whom such relations
are cultivated. Unfortunately, the diplomatic corps at present
residing in Caracas has confounded the incident concerning M.
Taigny, because the case was not one to be treated in diplomatic
form, unless by the government to whom the foreigner belonged, who
may have been affected, and never to be treated with all the
diplomatic corps together in a diplomatic way—que no cabe—it not
being a proper case.
And so we see that if the case which occurred with M. Taigny might
have been, let us say for example, with a Brazilian, it is clear
that it would be the Government of Brazil to whom the right of
asking explanations would belong and not to the diplomatic corps.
Indeed, the precedent which would be established, if the Government
will not accept the intervention in the form expressed, would be
fatal, because any one of the nations represented by the said
diplomatic corps to-morrow would be committed to accept like cases.
If the Government of Venezuela—insulted by the French Government,
which has gone so far as to qualify it as a despoiler, after
hovering over the troubles and misfortunes of the fatherland, with
the war in which conjointly with Venezuelan citizens it trampled on
the fatherland, and which by proven documents already known to the
public stands compromised—had done what it ought to have done, that
is to say, immediately cut oft its relations with the Government of
France, then, yes, that would have been a case for handing passports
to the fatal Taigny, passports which would have been respected by
the Venezuelan authorities, as M. Taigny himself would have been
without those passports even if he had been retired by his
Government, had he not become liable for the infraction of an
ordinary police regulation. Indeed, after the handing in of the note
by Mr. Russell in the name of the French Government and the answer
by the Venezuelan Government, what character can be given to M.
Taigny from the moment when the French Government categorically and
finally declared that relations were broken off and that M. Taigny
was withdrawn from the representation which he had? For the
Government of Venezuela, and for those who represent the diplomatic
corps, surely M. Taigny from this moment was nothing more than a
French citizen in Venezuela, under the protection of our laws and
our Government, but also liable to the action of these same laws,
which give him no immunity, even supposing that he still had a
diplomatic character, unless it were permissible to think that M.
Taigny, after being divested by his Government of the character
which he had, could continue to trample on the sacred and august
laws of the Republic, a fatal precedent which could be invoked
to-morrow in the respective countries represented by the diplomatic
corps when similar cases arose. As your excellency said in your
answering note that the former note from this chancellerie would be
brought in its entirety to the knowledge of the respective
Governments represented by the diplomatic corps, the Government of
the Republic has made haste to answer your excellency so that the
said diplomatic corps may deign to transmit simultaneously the
present note also, containing the reasons for which this Government
had foundation for sending your excellency the former note.
I renew, etc.,
