711.192/56c: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Panama (South)
39. The President today issued a proclamation abrogating the Taft Agreement as of June l.10 The Panaman Minister was informed that in order to provide ample time for the conclusion of the treaty negotiations, the War Department is today instructing the Canal authorities to continue as heretofore, for a period of one month the [Page 523] rules and practices of the Canal administration in the matter of commercial operations in the Canal Zone. This will mean that: (1). The sale of goods imported into the Canal Zone by the Government of the United States shall be limited by it to the officers, employees, workmen and laborers in the service and employ of the United States and the Panama Railroad Company, and to contractors operating in the Canal Zone and their employees, workmen and laborers and the families of all such persons. The United States would continue to make sales to ships as heretofore. (2). The Canal authorities will continue to cooperate in all proper ways with the Republic of Panama to prohibit smuggling into the Republic of goods purchased in the commissaries. (3). The Canal authorities will continue to extend to private merchants residing in the Republic of Panama the facilities for making sales to vessels transiting the Canal which they now enjoy. (4). The Government of the United States will continue to provide at a reasonable charge ships trading between ports of the Pacific coast and the city of Panama with docking facilities for the loading and unloading of merchandise in the port of Balboa whenever merchandise are consigned to the city of Panama or are to be shipped therefrom; same facilities to continue to be enjoyed by passengers bound for and departing from the city of Panama from or for ports of the Pacific coast. (5). With the exception of cable companies, oil, shipping and other concerns having a direct connection with the construction, operation, maintenance, sanitation and protection of the Canal no private business enterprise shall be permitted by the United States to be established, in addition to those already established in the Canal Zone. (6). With the exception of the guests of the Tivoli and Washington Hotels no person who is not an officer, employee, workman or laborer of the United States, the Panama Canal, the Panama Railroad Company or a contractor operating in the Canal Zone or his employees, workmen and laborers, or an officer, employee or workman of a company entitled under Section 5 above to conduct operations in the Canal Zone, or settlers employed in the cultivation of small tracts and hucksters or small establishments for supply of these settlers and of other employees, and the members of the families and domestic servants of all such persons, shall be entitled to dwell within the Canal Zone and no dwelling belonging to the Government of the United States or to the Panama Railroad Company and situated within the Zone shall be rented or leased by them to persons not within the excepted classes.
You may inform the Panama Government of the foregoing.
- Proclamation No. 1699; not printed.↩