CONSULATE INCIDENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18803, 5 March 1923, Page 5

CONSULATE INCIDENT

SEQUEL TO BRITAIN’S COMPLAINT. ATTITUDE OF UNITED STATES. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright WASHINGTON, March 3. (Received March 4, at 5.5 p.m.) The State Department announces that it will ignore Lord Curzon’s reply to Mr Hughes’s Note regarding the NewcastleConsulate, the Government regarding the incident as ended. • The Consulate will remain closed.—A. and N.Z. Cable. [A message received fast month stated that the Consuls—Messrs Slater and Brooks—wore charged with having improperly exerted their official influence in favour of American shipping lines. The American State Department refused to publish tho British Government’s report on tho charges. It was understood in America that Britain proposed to withdraw tho complaints against the Consuls, but not to admit that they were blameless. Tho T7.S. Government’s reply to Britain stated that the Newcastle Consulate confirmed tho formal intimations previously conveyed. The Note further pointed out that tho United States never questioned Groat Britain’s right to cancel tho exequatur of any American Consul on the ground that he was persona non grata, but where specific charges were advanced these must bo substantiated. Tho United States called into question the parallel that Britain drew between this case and the United States's cancellation of tho British Consul’s exequaturs in Philadelphia, New York, and Cincinatti in 1658, on the ground of illegal recruiting. The judicial proceedings brought against theee latter showed them to bo guilty of a violation of tho law. Mr Hughes also issued an explanatory statement that Great Britain in January, 1D22, asked the United States voluntarily to withdraw Messrs Brooks and Slater, on the ground that they were attempting by unfair means to induce passengers to travel by American boats. The United States investigated tho matter and found that the charges wore not true, and refused to withdraw the officials. A message dated February 20 stated that it was understood that tho United States, after three investigations, held that the British Government’s allegations against the Consulate officers, Messrs Slater and Brooks, that they improperly exorcised their authority, wero baseless; and Britain, had boon advised that tho Consulate would be kept closed until tho men were publicly exonerated.]