Mr. Foster to Mr. Newberry.
Washington, December 5, 1892.
Sir: Your No. 572 of October 19 reports the correspondence had with Mr. Henry O. Dwight concerning the action of the Turkish authorities in interfering with Mr. W. W. Mead by detaining nineteen mule-loads of furniture and personal effects at Hajin, and searching the property and persons of Mr. Mead and his companions, taking all books and papers of every description for examination.
Your discretion in referring the case to the Department for instructions is commended.
The frequent detention and search of American citizens, either at their homes or when lawfully journeying from one point to another in Turkish dominions, occasion much concern to this Government, as being acts of interference with the liberty of the citizen, alike repugnant to treaty rights and the vested rights of non-Mussulmans under capitulations and usage, and to the principles of international comity.
The general instructions to Mr. Thompson, the newly-appointed minister to Turkey, before his departure for his post, give especial heed to this phase of Ottoman interference with the individual rights of foreigners. Having in mind the statement of your No. 572 that the grand vizir in his interviews with you had shown “no hesitancy in expressing his opinion that where we had no consul, Turkish authorities had [Page 614] the undoubted right to search the persons and property of anyone, and to seize any book, paper, etc., they saw fit, and at any time and place,” I said to Mr. Thompson:
It would be a mere quibble—a trifling with the rights of the alien—to pretend, as the local authorities seem in some cases to have attempted, that this is not such a domiciliary search as the capitulations contemplate and permit only on lawful process and after notification to the consul charged with the resident’s protection. The rights of domicile spring from and are but a material manifestation of the rights of the individual—the one can not be respected and the other assailed.
This government can not admit that the arrest and search of American travelers rests on any different footing from the arrest and search of an American citizen in his domicile; or that the obligation on the part of the authorities to proceed according to law and treaty is limited to the place where a consular officer of the United States may reside. The jurisdiction of our consular representatives embraces the whole territory of their respective districts, and even then does not preclude our right to resort to the friendly offices of the consul of any other nation, if one be more conveniently within reach in the remoter provinces.
The interference with Mr. Mead seems to have equally extended to his associate, Mr. Martin, a British subject. This circumstance would warrant a comparison of views with the British ambassador at Constantinople, and if found expedient, resort to the good offices of the nearest British consul.
As Mr. Thompson will probably reach his post within a few days after your receipt of this instruction, and as the general subject to which this particular incident pertains has been very fully discussed in conference with Mr. Thompson and in the instructions given him, you will take no present action in Mr. Mead’s case, but will draw Mr. Thompson’s attention to this instruction leaving him to act upon it.
I am, etc.,