718.652/5a
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Costa Rica (Eberhardt)
Sir: The Department has received the Legation’s despatches No. 641 of October 14, 1931, and No. 702 of December 3, 1931,1 relating to a proposed Treaty of Commerce, Navigation and Consular Rights between Costa Rica and Italy.
The suggestion in the later despatch that Article 20 of the proposed Treaty2 might conceivably interfere with future negotiations between the United States and Costa Rica in respect of the projected Nicaragua Canal3 is of particular importance and interest. While the Department has been unable to perceive in the proposed article any basis for formal representations to the Costa Rican Government at this time, you are authorized, in case you deem desirable, informally, orally and confidentially to suggest to the appropriate Costa Rican officials the apparent inexpediency of placing in a treaty with another Government a provision whereby the nationals of the latter would automatically enjoy the same rights as Costa Rican citizens in the use of canals,—and which may, in case a treaty having in view the construction of an interoceanic canal is eventually negotiated between the United States and Costa Rica, furnish an element of difficulty in such negotiations.
The Department desires you carefully to watch the situation, to keep it informed of any developments and to transmit, when available, the text of the proposed treaty in the original language or languages.
Very truly yours,
- Neither printed.↩
- The text of the article, in part, is as follows: “Subjects of one of the Parties will have liberty to use in the territory of the other, under the same conditions and on payment of the same duties as nationals, the roads, canals, locks …” (718.652/1).↩
- See Foreign Relations, 1923, vol. i, pp. 834 ff.↩