to partake in our May festivities. An Argentine commission waited on their Government with a similar mission in 1907.

Various treaties have been entered into with Paraguay, dealing chiefly with commercial interchange. Both countries are jointly taking measures for dredging the River Paraguay, rendering it navigable for large craft. We have authorized the Paraguayan Government to construct a deposit in our docks for timber proceeding from their country and destined for European markets.

· An arrangement has been arrived at for the exportation of cattle from Paraguay to the Chaco and Corrientes.

Last year Uruguay sent a distinguished commission of civil and military dignitaries to partake in our 9th of July celebration. The members composing same were accorded a hearty welcome by your Government and the people. Notwithstanding the fishing-limit industry affair and the Constitucion incident, the relations between both Governments are very cordial.

A conference to discuss private international law will meet in this city on the 8th of July, 1909. Your Government conceived the idea of such a conference, and European powers have signified their intention of sending representatives. The chief preoccupation of my Government has been to maintain and enlarge existing markets and open others. We have been making every effort possible toward obtaining concessions in the European States.

All countries realize to-day the benefit to be derived from mutual concessions, which tend to maintain industrial and commercial prosperity. With this idea in view, I have reorganized our consular service, and no doubt we shall soci reap the benefit.

I have the pleasure and satisfaction of stating that, notwithsanding the number of foreigners resident with us, there is no a single instance pending in which diplomatic intervention has been consdered necessary.

Frequently this Republic is invited to attend conferences and congresses to consider matters of universal interest, and all these occasions are propitious for showing our progress and furthering our interests.

The Argentine Church continues to develop and extend its mission. We render all aid possible, and the relations with the church are of the best. The La Plata diocese has been endowed with an edifice appropriate to its requirements. I have fostered the establishment of seminaries in the capital and provinces. Thus the church will become thoroughly Argentine. The allowance to the church requires increasing, in view of the increased cost of living. It is only fitting that they should be amply provided for, in view of the importance of their elevated mission. Finally, the Sociedad de Beneficencia continues in its noble but ever-increasing labors. Funds do not, however, come in in proportion to the needs of the society, and I would suggest that more help be rendered in this quarter.

76851°- B 1908- -2

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.

EXPULSION OF SELIG FINK FROM AUSTRIA.

File No. 4062/6.

No. 78.]

The Secretary of State to Ambassador Francis.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, January 31, 1907. SIR: I inclose copies of correspondence with Harold E. Parsons, Esq., Cleveland, Ohio, relative to the case of the expulsion from Austria of Mr. Selig Fink.

In view of the fact that Mr. Fink is a duly naturalized citizen of the United States and was provided with a passport, dated July 6, 1905, and at the time of his emigration owed the Austrian Government no military service, and that he left that country, as far as appears, in good standing, you are instructed to exercise further good offices in order that the decree of expulsion may be extended until May of the present year, or until Mr. Fink may have the opportunity to attend to his legitimate business in Austria.

I am, etc.,

E. ROOT.

File No. 4062/7-9.

No. 181.]

Chargé Rives to the Secretary of State.

AMERICAN EMBASSY, Vienna, February 23, 1907. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatch No. 78 of January 31, 1907, relative to the expulsion from Austria of Mr. Selig Fink, a naturalized citizen of the United States.

At the time Mr. Fink received his order of expulsion in July last, he requested this embassy to intervene in his behalf and I called at the foreign office where I had an interview of considerable length with Mr. de Mérey, at that time acting minister for foreign affairs, on the subject.

Since receiving your dispatch I have again called at the foreign office and inquired what their view was in regard to the case of Mr. Fink, and whether the Austro-Hungarian foreign office would adhere to its former refusal in the case, either to extend the period of the decree of expulsion or recall it altogether.

1 Not printed.

I was received at the foreign office by Mr. de Mérey, at present the first chief of section (assistant secretary of state) who said that in the case of Mr. Fink, there was no use whatever in this embassy's addressing a formal note to the Austro-Hungarian foreign office requesting that Mr. Fink's decree of expulsion be extended until May, 1907. Mr. Fink had, according to the terms of his decree of expulsion (a copy of which is herewith inclosed), resided in Grybów, Galicia, since August 8, 1905, and as he had remained some three weeks in the country after the date set for his expulsion, the AustroHungarian foreign office could not interfere with, or reverse the decision of the local authorities.

Mr. de Mérey said all the European Governments reserved the right to expel any foreigner they deemed objectionable, and Mr. Fink could not be allowed to return to his former home, if his presence there was deemed undesirable by the local authorities, no matter what the pretext was.

In this case the Austro-Hungarian Government considered the public interests required the banishment of Mr. Selig Fink, as his actions were derogatory to the executive power of the country. Mr. Fink was merely making use of his American citizenship in Austria as a loophole to avoid military service; he had failed, while living in Austria to report for military examination and had emigrated to the United States without permission of the proper authorities.

For these reasons Mr. Fink's decree of banishment could not be recalled, and his presence was additionally undesirable on account of his conduct.

I beg to quote part of a note received from the foreign office to show the standpoint taken by the Imperial and Royal Government in a similar case:

The opinion that the order of expulsion is a punishment not permitted by the treaty of 1871 can not be considered correct when viewed from the standpoint of Austrian law.

* *

The order of expulsion is in no way to be regarded as a punishment placed * because he has not fulfilled his military obligations here in this country, and equally little has the expulsion in question any direct connection with the fact that he acquired citizenship in the United States. The order against him possesses no other significance than that of an administrative act, which springs from consideration for public order, and is based on the belief that the latter suffers when a person, by assuming foreign citizenship, avoids performance of those duties to his country which are placed upon him as upon all his fellow-citizens, and, then, when protected by new citizenship from the punishment otherwise resultant from this avoidance of duty, returns and settles permanently in the midst of his former countrymen, who find themselves in a condition not so favorable as his.

Such an act is not only a provocation of discontent in all those who fulfill their obligations to the State, but it acts as a bad example, and were such proceedings unchecked or of frequent occurence, would work positive harm to the defensive power of the State. According to the standpoint here indicatedwhich alone has been productive of the order of the expulsion of *-the action of the imperial royal officials can only be regarded as an act of precaution which the common considerations of State demand for the paralyzing of the damaging influence of such occurrences and are in no wise to be connected with the obligations stipulated for the contracting parties in the treaty of 1870. I beg to request the department's instructions if any further action shall be taken by this embassy in the case.

I have, etc.,

GEORGE BARCLAY RIVES.

File No. 4062/7-9.

The Acting Secretary of State to Ambassador Francis.

No. 98.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, April 13, 1907. SIR: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 181 of the 23d of February last, in further relation to the expulsion from Austria of Mr. Selig Fink, a naturalized citizen of the United States, of Austrian origin.

The reasons in support of the policy of expulsion as given by Mr. de Mérey and continued in the note of the Austrian foreign office "in a similar case " from which you quote, have long been known to this department and have from time to time been made the subject of earnest remonstrances which, in meritorious cases, have been successful. The department will again endeavor to make clear a distinction which it has several times heretofore drawn in considering this class of cases in order that the subject may again be presented to the Austrian Government for its consideration.

The attitude of the Austrian Government in these cases is understood to be somewhat as follows: If an Austrian subject emigrates to the United States before any liability accrues for the performance of military service, becomes naturalized here and returns to the country of his birth, his case not coming within the exceptions of our naturalization treaty, is covered by it and the Austrian Government will no longer claim him as its subject; but the treaty does not deprive that Government of the rights which are inherent in every nation to adopt such measures as it may see fit for its own protection and preservation, among these rights being the power to expel any foreigner whose presence may be undesirable with regard to public order or safety and who may perhaps become a menance to the Government.

In the matter of these naturalization cases which so frequently arise, the complaint of the Austrian Government is that their subjects emigrate to America only a short time before they reach the age of miltary service, acquire American citizenship, and then return to their native country where very often they intend permanently to reside. Not only do they in this manner successfully evade the laws of the country of their birth, but this is often accompanied with as widespread a personal advertisement of the fact as the individual has at his command, and its effect may no doubt become serious upon the community in which he resides by creating discontent and dissatisfaction in the minds of those of his townspeople who can not invoke the protection of the treaty as an immunity. As one American minister has aptly said: "Many of these returned pseudo-Americans are loud in their defiance of the military power and openly and shamelessly boast of their smartness in being able to enjoy all the privileges of a government without being obliged to share its burdens of responsibilities."

Up to this point in the argument there should be no serious difference between the two Governments in the treatment of these cases. The United States has no more interest to protect a naturalized citizen who has perpetrated a fraud upon it by using its naturalization

laws for illegitimate purposes than the Austrian Government has in removing the same individual from its realms as an undesirable person. But the point of divergence begins here, for the Austrian Government by its legislation seeks to treat in the same manner all of its former subjects who have become naturalized in the United States and elsewhere, without making any distinction between those who return to Austria bona fide for the sake of a temporary, perhaps indispensable, visit, with the intention to return to their adopted country when their business is completed, and those who expect to remain there permanently, practically in fraud of both Governments. If all naturalized citizens are liable to expulsion from Austria simply because they came to America before the beginning of the period of military service and as an incident escaped the rigor of those laws, expulsion is their punishment for naturalization. It is this situation against which this Government has so often earnestly protested. It is penalty upon the innocent along with the guilty and in its application to the former has the effect of neutralizing to a serious extent the provisions of the naturalization treaty, for the Austrian Government does not recognize and grant to such of our citizens the privilege of full American citizenship on the contrary it practically denies to them entrance within its territories.

The department's conception of the just attitude to be taken in these naturalization cases is that each should be examined and determined upon its merits. If our naturalized citizens return to Austria-Hungary for purposes of bona fide temporary sojourn and conduct themselves as quiet and inoffensive individuals, this Government should and does protect them as far as possible during such visit. In past cases the Austrian Government has acceded to our protests in cases of this character. In other cases that have been brought to the department's attention and have become the subject of correspondence with the Austrian Government, when it has been made to appear that the person involved has not acted in good faith or if he has been guilty of misconduct against or disrespect for the local laws, the department has withdrawn its protection. In other words, each individual case should be considered upon its own merits and should not be determined in advance against the prospective visitor. The department will confidently expect in the future, as it has in the past, that a naturalized American citizen of Austro-Hungarian origin who returns to Austria-Hungary, for temporary purposes of bona fide visit, business, or travel, will be treated in all respects as a native born American citizen in that country on a similar mission. The passage which you quote in your dispatch setting forth the views of the Austrian foreign office upon this subject may be found nearly verbatim upon page 421 of volume 3 of Moore's International Law Digest. You will find from an examination of this and the two pages following that the department fully answered the contention of the Austrian minister of foreign affairs, and that the case was settled to the apparent satisfaction of the person in whose behalf the department had interfered. An examination of pages 408 to 423 of this volume relating to correspondence between the two Governments concerning the naturalization treaty is commended to your attention.