Office of the Historian

711.19/177

The Panamanian Legation to the Secretary of State

[Translation]

The President of the Republic of Panama believes that the questions pending with the Government of the United States and which have arisen from the relations created by the Treaty of November 18, 19031 are a matter of life or death for the Republic of Panama, and for that reason wishes to have a personal interview with the President of the United States, in order to make an appeal to his noble sentiments of justice and humanity and endeavor to find a means whereby better feelings may prevail between the two countries and more effective cooperation for the mutual benefit of the two peoples.

For this purpose, the President of Panama proposes to make a brief statement concerning the basic facts relating to the treaty of November 18, 1903, and the declarations of American statesmen of the time of its conclusion.

The President of Panama has in view two purposes:

The first is an agreement by virtue of which measures of a purely administrative character may be taken in connection with the administration of the Panama Canal, in regard to the following points:

1.
Activities of the commissaries, of the railroad and of other establishments of the United States in so far as they affect the economic or commercial development of the Republic of Panama.
2.
Sale of provisions, meats, beer and other Panamanian products, by Panama merchants for consumption or as supplies in Canal Zone.
3.
Sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products in the Canal Zone by commissaries and other establishments of the United States.
4.
The Panama Railway Company, its status as a private enterprise and its refusal to pay taxes in its capacity as such in connection with activities not connected with the operation of the railway and establishments connected therewith, in accordance with Article 18 of the Contract of 1867.2
5.
Repatriation of indigent laborers who have come to Panama because of the work on the Canal.
6.
Establishment of Panamanian customhouses in the ports of the Canal Zone, in conformity with the second paragraph of Article IX of the Treaty of 1903.
7.
Radio communications within the Republic of Panama.
8.
Construction of the highway from Alhajuela to Colon.
9.
Jurisdictional acts of the authorities of the Zone in the cities of Panama and Colon.

The second purpose proposed by the President of Panama is that of attaining an agreement by virtue of which the following general bases shall be established for future negotiations:

  • First basis: That the Republic of Panama is disposed to contribute in every way possible to the efficient maintenance, operation, sanitation and protection of the Panama Canal.
  • Second basis: That the Canal Zone be used, occupied and controlled exclusively to maintain, operate, sanitate and protect the Canal already constructed.
  • Third basis: That in consequence Panama be left in a position to insure for her own development the commercial advantages inherent in the geographic situation of her territory, without interfering in any way, on the one hand, with the maintenance, operation, sanitation and protection of the Canal by the United States of America nor with the latter’s judicial, police and administrative jurisdiction in the Canal Zone and without, on the other hand, the prosperity of Panama or its prestige as a nation being prejudiced or affected.
  • Fourth basis: That differences of an economic character which cannot be settled directly by the two parties shall be decided by arbiters whom they may designate.

Washington , September 21, 1933.
  1. Foreign Relations, 1904, p. 543.↩
  2. See ibid., 1868, pt. 2, p. 1034. The contract is not published.↩