. . . . . . .
[Enclosure—Translation]
The Panaman Minister for Foreign Affairs
(Arosemena) to the American
Chargé (Muse)
Panama, May 16, 1929.
D. D. No.Mr. Chargé d’affaires: I have received your
courteous Note No. 956 of the 14th instant,10 relative to the sale made by the
Cristobal Commissary of various articles to three officers of the
English ship Tritonia, to which I had the
honor to call the attention of that Legation in Note No. 646 of
April 11th last.
Replying to my communication above-mentioned requesting that in the
future similar privileges should not be granted in the Commissaries
of the Canal or the Panama Railroad to persons not connected in some
way with the enterprises referred to, you inform me that you have
received instructions from your Government to point out to me that
there is nothing in treaties now in force which prohibits the
Government of the United States from making sales in the Canal
Commissaries to any one to whom it may wish to extend the privilege
of purchasing in them. And you add that although, since the
abrogation of the Taft Agreement, sales at the commissaries have
been restricted to certain classes of persons, changes in this
policy or the authorization of particular sales in special cases are
questions which are entirely within the discretion of the United
States Government so long as the treaty signed July 28, 1926, is not
ratified.
Permit me, Sir, in my turn, to point out the nonconcurrence of the
Government of Panama in the thesis sustained in your note to which I
refer. The Government of Panama maintains, on the contrary, its
constantly expressed opinion that there does exist a treaty in force
which prohibits such sales and that that treaty is the one signed in
Washington on November 18, 1903, by Plenipotentiaries of Panama and
of the United States, ratified in due course by both countries,
since this treaty establishes expressly in Article XIII who are the
persons for whom the Government of the United States may import free
of duty the articles therein mentioned, namely, “officials,
employees, laborers and workmen in the service and the employ of the
United States and their families”. This clause cannot be understood
otherwise than as a limitation of the rights granted by Panama to
the United States by the treaty in question, because otherwise it
would be unnecessary and useless, and it is not conceivable that two
plenipotentiaries
[Page 723]
would
stipulate ineffectual clauses in an international convention of such
great transcendency.
To admit that the United States availed itself of a right when it
made sales in its Commissary at Cristobal to officers of the English
ship Tritonia and that it is entirely within
its discretion to extend to whomever it wishes the privilege of
purchasing in these establishments, would lead likewise to the
acceptance of the theory that this privilege could be extended, for
example, to all the inhabitants of the Isthmus of Panama, and that
in this way the United States would come to constitute virtually,
under certain circumstances, the only salesman in the country; and
would also be tantamount to converting the Canal Zone into “a
competing and independent community which should ruinously affect
their business and reduce their revenues”, diminishing at the same
time the prestige of Panama as a nation; precisely what ex-President
Roosevelt declared on a solemn occasion that it was not and could
not be the desire of the United States to do; a promise which the
Panaman people have steadily trusted, because of the confidence
which the word of that great statesman, who then ruled over the
destinies of the United States of America and who was at the same
time the most characteristic exponent of the American people, must
necessarily merit.
With reference to the treaty signed on July 28, 1926, permit me, Sir,
also to express my opinion that that agreement should not be
considered as pending ratification in its present form, since the
National Assembly, upon examining it, suspended consideration of it
until the Executive Power should have the opportunity once more to
take steps conducive to the attainment of solutions which should
fully satisfy the Nation’s aspirations, to which the representations
made by our Legation in Washington following the aforementioned
decision conform, representations concerning which the Panaman
Government awaits the reply of the Department of State.
I avail myself [etc.]
