Baron Fava to Mr. Hay.
Washington, January 7, 1900.
Mr. Secretary of State: You were pleased, in referring to my note of the 21st ultimo, to inform me, under date of the 5th instant, that “it has been decided by the Treasury Department to instruct the commissioner of immigration at the Barge Office at New York to extend the same facilities for meeting and caring for immigrants from Italy as are extended upon the arrival of immigrants from any other countries.”
I have the honor to thank you for this communication, although I regret the considerable delay with which it has been sent to me, to the detriment of the interests of Italian immigrants, which it is the duty of this royal embassy to protect.
Permit me to remark, furthermore, that, by the decision which you have been pleased to communicate to me, the Treasury Department has made no answer to the frank and explicit requests which I took care to formulate, either in my aforesaid note of December 21, or in the letter which I addressed, on the 27th of that month, to the honorable Mr. Hill.
In expressing, by those two letters, the conviction that the delegates of the consulate-general of Italy at New York would be admitted to the Barge Office “by the same right as the delegates of the Austro-Hungarian consulate, and that they would perform the same functions there,” I asked, especially, that those functions might be clearly denned, so as not to give rise to any further misunderstandings which would afterwards furnish ground for regret on both sides.
As the Treasury Department has made no mention of those powers in the above-named decision, and as it has not specified what the facilities are which are extended upon the arrival of immigrants from any other countries (which phrase can evidently refer to none but the delegate [Page 439] of the Austro-Hungarian consulate), I am under the necessity of again insisting that those powers and facilities, which have long been enjoyed by the aforesaid delegate of the Austro-Hungarian consulate, shall be clearly and plainly stated to me.
This request, which I hereby reiterate, is fully justified by the earnest desire which I feel to avoid the slightest misunderstanding in future, and to issue to the King’s consul at New York, as regards the sphere of action of his delegate at the Barge Office, categorical instructions in absolute harmony with the intentions of the Treasury Department, and with the instructions which that Department undoubtedly communicated at the proper time to the consulate of Austria-Hungary at New York.
I trust that these frank and unequivocal declarations will be appreciated by the honorable Secretary of the Treasury, and that he will consequently comply with my requests, which, from the beginning of this incident, have been designed solely to enable me to act in full accord with him and with the requirements of the Federal Bureau of Immigration.
Be pleased to accept, etc.,