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here, no question would have arisen, but I was unwilling under the circumstances to require him to do that, because the reason therefor seemed to me to be unsubstantial.

I have, etc.,

Mr. Uhl to Mr. Runyon.

T. RUNYON.

No. 81.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, April 3, 1894.

SIR: Your dispatch No. 58, of the 10th ultimo, in relation to your action in issuing a passport to an American citizen upon an application taken before the vice-commercial agent of the United States at Luxemburg, has been received.

In reply I have to say that no question of territorial jurisdiction is necessarily involved in the case. When there is no representative of the United States competent to issue a passport in a small sovereign state, the nearest embassy or legation can be applied to. Thus an application from Monaco might be made indifferently to Paris or Rome; from Andorra to Madrid or Paris, and so forth.

It would seem, however, that the commercial agent at Luxemburg had authority to issue a passport. The statutes provide for the issuance of passports in foreign countries by consular officers, and commercial agents are declared to be full consular officers by section 1674 of the Revised Statutes.

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SIR: I inclose a copy of a letter addressed to this Department by Mr. Julius Hess, who alleges that he is a naturalized American citizen, and who states that his application to your embassy for a passport was refused; also a copy of the Department's reply.

Your embassy appears, according to Mr. Hess's statement, to have acted in accordance with our long-established rule that the applicant for a passport must produce evidence to show his intention to return to and reside in the United States.

The Department has, however, admitted occasional exceptions to this rule where sound public policy seemed to warrant them. Our legations have been authorized to issue passports to missionaries in foreign lands, whose residence there was continuous and practically permanent, and who could not allege any definite intention of returning to and residing in the United States. An exception has also been made in the case of agents of American business houses who are engaged in foreign lands in promoting trade with the United States. (See Wharton's International Law Digest, Vol. II, pp. 369, 370.)

In view of the statements of Mr. Hess's letter, it may be that his case may fall under the second exception. The Department has, therefore, suggested to him that he apply again to your embassy, stating fully the nature of his employment and its relations with the trade of this country. If the facts appear to warrant the inclusion of the case in the second class of exceptions, the Department is of the opinion that, in view of Mr. Hess's express declaration of his desire to preserve his American nationality, a passport may be issued to him.

I am, sir, etc.,

W. Q. GRESHAM.

GREAT BRITAIN.

[See "Affairs at Bluefields," Senate Ex. Doc. No. 20, Fifty-third Congress, third session, and " Regulations respecting fur seals," Senate Ex. Doc. No. 67, Fifty-third Congress, third session. Appendix Foreign Relations, 1894.]

No. 473.]

CONSULAR REPRESENTATION IN BULGARIA.1

Mr. Adee to Mr. Bayard.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, August 10, 1894.

SIR: The Department being informed that a new British agent and consul-general has been appointed at Sofia, you are instructed to request Lord Kimberley to permit him to continue the good offices heretofore extended in behalf of our citizens in Bulgaria by Mr. Henry Nevill Dering, the retiring officer.

The Department has advised our minister at Constantinople of this instruction.

I am, etc.,

ALVEY A. ADEE,

Acting Secretary.

No. 294.]

Mr. Roosevelt to Mr. Gresham.

EMBASSY OF THE UNITED STATES,

London, September 1, 1894. (Received September 10.) SIR: I have the honor to inform you that, in accordance with your Instruction No. 473, of the 10th ultimo, I addressed, on the 23d of August last, a note to Her Majesty's secretary of state for foreign affairs, a copy of which is inclosed herewith, requesting that the good offices heretofore extended in behalf of United States citizens in Bulgaria by the British representative at Sofia, Mr. Dering, might be continued by his successor in office, Sir Arthur Nicholson, and I have now the honor to inclose herewith a copy of Lord Kimberley's reply thereto, stating that he will have pleasure in thus instructing Sir Arthur Nicholson when his appointment is taken up in the autumn.

I have, etc.,

JAMES R. ROOSEVELT.

1 See Foreign Relations, 1893, pp. 325, 326.

[Inclosure 1 in No. 294.]

Mr. Roosevelt to Lord Kimberley.

EMBASSY OF THE UNITED STATES, London, August 23, 1894. MY LORD: Referring to Mr. Bayard's note of August 16, 1894, to your predecessor, and in accordance with instructions from my Government, I have the honor to ask your Lordship to be so good as to permit the newly appointed British agent and consul-general at Sofia to continue the good offices heretofore extended, so courteously and efficiently, to citizens of the United States by his predecessor in office, Mr. Dering.

I have, etc.,

[Inclosure 2 in 294.]

JAMES R. Roosevelt.

Lord Kimberley to Mr. Roosevelt.

FOREIGN OFFICE, August 27, 1894. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 23d instant requesting on behalf of the U. S. Government that the protection hitherto extended by Her Majesty's representatives at Sofia to American citizens in Bulgaria may be continued by Mr. Dering's

successor.

I shall have much pleasure in giving instructions in this sense to Sir Arthur Nicholson when he takes up his appointment as Her Majesty's agent and consul-general at Sofia in the course of the autumn. I have, etc.,

KIMBERLEY.

Mr. Uhl to Mr. Bayard.

No. 505.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, September 11, 1894.

SIR: I have the honor to inform you that the Department has received and read with pleasure Mr. Roosevelt's dispatch No. 294, of the 1st instant, reporting that Her Britannic Majesty's Government has consented to instruct the newly appointed British agent and consul-general at Sofia to continue the good offices heretofore extended to American citizens in Bulgaria by his predecessor, Mr. Dering.

Requesting you to communicate to the foreign office an expression of the Department's high appreciation of the friendly and courteous action of Her Majesty's Government in regard to the matter in question, I am, etc.,

EDWIN F. UHL,
Acting Secretary.

REMOVAL OF BRITISH SUBJECTS FROM THE CHOCTAW RESERVATION.

Mr. Adee to Sir Julian Pauncefote.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, August 2, 1894.

DEAR SIR JULIAN: In your personal note of the 23d ultimo, inclosing a communication from certain parties claiming to be British subjects, who are supposed to be among those whose removal has been requested by the Choctaw authorities, you say:

The case seems a hard one if their allegations be correct and they have committed no offense in relation to the strike. It would be satisfactory to know on what ground they are ejected after so long a residence, the absence of a permit having apparently been condoned by long sufferance. Their ejection may be a mode of unjust coercion by interested parties, and entails absolute ruin on them. I hope, therefore, that you will kindly institute some further inquiry which will elicit, not the.law under which it is proposed to eject them, but the reasons for putting the law in force after a residence of years in the Territory.

Having handed both your note and its inclosure to the Secretary of the Interior, I have now the honor to acquaint you with the substance of his reply.

On the 7th ultimo Secretary Smith transmitted to me a report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs giving the reasons for the removal of parties shown to be within the Choctaw territory without proper authority and the treaties and laws under which this action was to be taken. Copy of this report I sent you July 10.

What motive prompted the Choctaw authorities to demand the removal of the persons designated by them as intruders the Secretary of the Interior is unable to say. On May 12 last the Indian agent of his Department whose field of duties includes the Choctaw country reported that 2,000 miners who had struck were boisterous and threatening; that the police force was inadequate to meet the crisis, and that he regarded the presence of a military force as absolutely essential. About the same time various other telegrams were received showing the situation there to be most critical and the danger of loss of life and property imminent.

On May 19, 1894, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs submitted to the Interior Department a letter from the governor of the Choctaw Nation, inclosing the names of 200 people, who, it was said, entered the nation under permit of the authorites thereof, to work for the Choctaw Coal Railway Company, but who had quit their work, and were therefore no longer protected by the permits issued to them, and asking for their removal as intruders.

The Commissioner recommended that such persons as had no authority to remain in the Choctaw country be removed, and this recommendation was approved by the Interior Department. The Secretary of the Interior has not yet received a full report of the investigation made and action taken by the agent under the authority thus granted to remove intruders.

The Choctaws are not citizens of the United States, but constitute a separate nation, with its own form of government and laws existing within the borders of the United States under and in accordance with treaty stipulations. Those people who go into that country must be held to have done so with full knowledge of those treaties and of the Choctaw laws, and must accept the consequences if they are found to be there without proper authority. The statement made by these parties that they have their homes there, which represent to them years of

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