Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States, 1930, Volume I

150.071 Control/26

The Canadian Legation to the Department of State⁶⁶

Aide-Mémoire

Senate Bill S. 1941 and House Bill H. B. 7763, which are identical measures “to provide for the deportation of certain alien seamen, and for other purposes”, are re-introductions of legislative proposals which failed to pass the 69th and 70th Congresses. The possibility of the enactment of these Bills is causing concern to foreign countries, both because they diverge in certain important respects from accepted international practice, and because their provisions would create serious difficulties for foreign shipping.

The general ground on which objection may be based is that the proposals would result in drastic interference with the composition of crews of foreign vessels in United States ports; they would thus infringe on the accepted principle which provides against interference with the domestic economy of a foreign vessel, except in extraordinary circumstances, by the authorities of the States which it visits in the ordinary course of trade.

Furthermore, the Bills would have the effect of discriminating against foreign vessels trading to the United States, and this discrimination would be particularly severe in the case of vessels the crews of which were in part composed of Oriental seamen. These vessels, unless they were registered in the country of the nationality of their crews, probably would be debarred from entering a port of the United States by the effect of Section 7 of the Bills.

Specific objections may be made to the provision of Section 2 which authorizes a United States Immigration Inspector to determine whether any member of a vessel’s crew is or is not a bona fide seaman; also to the provision of Section 3 that an alien who has been found to be not a bona fide seaman by the Immigration Service, and who is not admissible as an immigrant, must be deported as a passenger on a vessel other than that by which he arrived; and to the provision of Section 6 that every vessel, the majority of the crew of which has been engaged abroad, should not be granted clearance unless it takes out from the United States a crew at least equal in number of that with which it entered.

It may be noted also that the Bills apparently would apply to shipping on the Great Lakes as well as to shipping at ocean ports.

Several of their provisions, and those of Section 6 especially, might easily cause substantial delay, trouble and expense to Canadian lines maintaining regular passenger and freight services on the Great Lakes.

Representations have been received from shipping interests in Canada complaining of the hardship which would be inflicted on them by the passage of the Bill for the reasons which are briefly summarized above, and on additional technical grounds.

Washington , April 1, 1930.

66. A copy was transmitted by the Department to the Chairmen of the Senate Committee on Immigration and the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization.