Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States, 1929, Volume III

811f.244/98: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Minister in Panama ( South )

Washington , May 13, 1929—noon.

33. Your despatch No. 1998, of April 22. Please address a note to the Panaman Government referring further to its note of April 11 and informing the Government that you have been instructed to point out that there is nothing in treaties now in force to prevent the United States Government from making sales at the Canal Commissaries to anyone to whom it may wish to extend the privilege of purchasing there. Since the abrogation of the Taft Agreement⁶ sales have been restricted in practice to certain classes of persons by the voluntary action of this Government and as a matter of policy, but changes in the present policy or the authorization of particular sales in special cases are questions entirely within the discretion of the United States Government so long as the treaty signed July 28, 1926,⁷ remains unratified.

Stimson

6. Abrogated June 1, 1924; see telegram No. 39, May 28, 1924, Foreign Relations, 1924, vol. ii, p. 522.
7. Ibid., 1926, vol. ii, p. 828.