he has never been declared deprived." This language seems to imply that, in the opinion of the Swiss Government, in abducting the child from the United States the father simply exercised his paternal right, and that this Government can not complain of his act. Does that Government take the position that one of its subjects may enter the territory of the United States in defiance of their sovereignty and authority, and by stealth or force take from their jurisdiction a citizen or even an alien having a lawful domicile here? If it does, this Government must emphatically record its dissent from a proposition so subversive of the fundamental principles of sovereignty. The case can not be permitted to remain as it now stands; it might in the future be cited as a precedent against this Government, and therefore you will again bring the matter to the attention of the Swiss Government and demand such action on its part as will comport with the dignity and sovereignty of the United States. I am, etc., W. Q. GRESHAM. PROTECTION TO SWISS CITIZENS BY UNITED STATES REPRESENTATIVES IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. Mr. Claparède to Mr. Gresham. LEGATION OF SWITZERLAND, Washington, January 11, 1894. (Received January 13.) Mr. SECRETARY OF STATE: By a note dated January 28, 1893, your honorable predecessor, in reply to a request for intervention which I had had the honor to address to him on the occasion of the murder of a Swiss citizen named Lecoultre, at Poassa, in the province of Bahia, Brazil, was pleased to inform me that he had instructed the United States minister at Rio to communicate with the consul-general of Switzerland in that city, and to lend him his good offices in the matter as far as might be possible without prejudice to the action of the minister of France, who already had charge of the case, and without arousing his susceptibilities. In expressing to you, Mr. Secretary of State, the sincere gratitude of my Government for the kindness with which the Department of State was pleased, at that time, to comply with the aforesaid request, I have the honor to inform your excellency that various circumstances have hitherto prevented us from availing ourselves of the aid of the United States representative in Brazil, but I have received orders to have recourse to your kindness in behalf of a person who represents the heirs of the said Lecoultre. These heirs are having the farm worked which belonged to Lecoultre. This farm is situated at Cannavieras, in the province of Bahia, and is worked by a Swiss citizen named Jean Etter, whose life and property, owing to the disturbed state of that Republic, are in constant danger. The property adjoins a farm which formerly belonged to a Frenchman named Blanchet, but which has just been sold to a Mr. Rosse, an engineer, who is a citizen of the United States, and who, as such, enjoys the protection of your Government. The owners of the farm which formerly belonged to Mr. Lecoultre desire to have it, and likewise the person of Mr. Etter, placed under the protection of the United States of America. As Switzerland has no diplomatic representative in Brazil, and as the Swiss Federal Government thinks that the person of Mr. Etter, in view of the present situation of the Republic of Brazil, is in a very precarious condition, I have the honor, Mr. Secretary of State, in pursuance of the instructions of my Government, to request that the United States legation, under whose protection Mr. Etter's neighbor is, may be instructed by you to take also Mr. Etter under its protection, together with the property of which he has charge. Renewing the assurance of my Government's gratitude for the assistance and protection which the United States Government, on various occasions, has been pleased to afford to Swiss citizens in localities where Switzerland has no diplomatic representative, I gladly avail, etc., ALFRED DE CLAPARÈDE. Mr. Uhl to Mr. Claparède. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 11th ultimo, asking the protection of the United States minister to Brazil for the estate of the deceased Swiss citizen Lecoultre, and for the person of its manager, Jean Etter, also a Swiss citizen. Under the conditions described by you, the estate belonging to a Swiss citizen, and the resident manager, Jean Etter, being also a Swiss, I will have pleasure in instructing Mr. Thompson, the United States minister at Rio de Janeiro, to use his good offices within proper limits for their friendly protection in case of need, in view of the absence of a diplomatic representative of Switzerland in Brazil, and with the consent of the Brazilian Government. Accept, etc., EDWIN F. UHL, Acting Secretary. Mr. Gresham to Mr. Tavel. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, SIR: Referring to the note of January 11 last from your legation, I have the honor to apprise you of the receipt of a dispatch from the United States minister at Petropolis, numbered 298, of the 1st ultimo, written in reply to the Department's instruction to use his good offices for the protection of the Lecoultre estate. Mr. Thompson states that while the Swiss Government has no diplo matic representative in Brazil, Mr. Rafford, the Swiss consul-general, has always been recognized in questions of interest to that country, not excepting the Lecoultre case. For this reason, and also because the French minister has used his good offices in the same case, Mr. Thompson decided to await further instructions from the Department. As it thus appears that the official intervention of the Swiss consulgeneral will be admitted by the Brazilian Government in behalf of Swiss citizens in Brazil in default of a regularly accredited diplomatic agent, and as Mr. Rafford's attention has been already given to the matter of the Lecoultre estate, it is not thought needful to give Mr. Thompson specific instructions in that regard or general authority in respect to the informal protection of Switzers. Accept, etc., Mr. Tavel to Mr. Gresham. Mr. SECRETARY OF STATE: W. Q. GRESHAM. LEGATION OF SWITZERLAND, Washington, D. C., November 5, 1894. The situation of foreigners residing in China having, in connection with the war between China and Japan, given rise to serious apprehensions, the Swiss Federal Council has taken into consideration the question of securing protection for Swiss citizens in the far East. It has, therefore, decided to request all the powers that have adhered to the propositions of Great Britain for the joint protection of Europeans and Americans, namely, Germany, France, Russia, and the United States, that they will protect the Swiss citizens residing in China. I have the honor to inform you that I am directed by my Government to lay before your excellency the request that the Government of the United States kindly agree to extend its protection to Swiss citizens in China so long as the concerted action of the powers will obtain. The Swiss Federal Council has addressed an identic request to the abovenamed powers. Hoping that your excellency will kindly, on this other occasion, grant the Swiss citizens the assistance and protection which they have so often received of the Government of the United States, I seize, etc., CHARLES C. TAVEL. Mr. Uhl to Mr. Tavel. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, November 13, 1894. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 5th instant, wherein you make known to this Department the request of your Government that that of the United States will agree to extend its protection to Swiss citizens in China. The diplomatic and consular officers of the United States were instructed on the 16th of June, 1877, to use their good offices in behalf of Swiss citizens sojourning in their vicinity in the absence of diplo matic and consular representatives of the Confederation. A copy of these instructions was communicated by Mr. Fish, our then minister at Berne, on August 7, 1877, to the President of the Swiss Confederation. As far as this Government is concerned these instructions have never been revoked, and our diplomatic and consular officers are still ready to discharge the duties which they involve. As to the protection from violence of Swiss citizens now sojourning at treaty ports in China, the ships of war of the United States will, whenever necessity arises, grant them the same protection as they would to any other citizens or subjects of a neutral foreign power residing in the same port. Accept, etc., EDWIN F. UHL, No. 32.] MILITARY TAX. Mr. Broadhead to Mr. Gresham. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Berne, March 12, 1894. (Received March 26.) SIR: I have the honor to inform you that several complaints have been made to me by persons formerly citizens of the Swiss Confederacy, but now naturalized citizens of the United States, who have come to this country for business or pleasure, on account of the exaction from them of the military tax which has accrued during their absence, and while they were resident citizens of the United States. The last case which has been presented to me is that of a former Swiss subject who emigrated to the United States in 1886, where he became duly naturalized. At the time he left Switzerland he was not in arrears for any military exemption tax, nor for any military duty, due up to that time. He returned to Switzerland a short time ago to visit relatives. At once, upon his arrival, he was required by the Swiss authori ties to pay the military exemption tax for the seven years during which he had been in America. This is wrong and unjust; the requirement was made of him under an order of the police and military departments of the canton of St. Gall, a copy of which (translated) is inclosed herewith, and by which it appears that the federal military department has decided that "Swiss citizens, returning from the United States, if they can not prove that they have served in the army there, or paid military tax there during their stay, shall be required to pay the mili tary tax in Switzerland for and during ten years last past." This departmental decision was approved by the Federal Council on December 19, 1893. This was intended to include Swiss citizens who have been naturalized in the United States, as in the case above referred to, because the Swiss Government does not recognize the right of a Swiss subject by naturalization to absolve himself from any of the obligations due by him under the Swiss laws and because the order is claimed to be made under the provisions of the treaty of November 25, 1850, and to the military tax provided for by that treaty, which requires a commutation tax from citizens of the United States (native or naturalized) residing or established in Switzerland; I say native or naturalized because the treaty makes no distinction. The language of the treaty is as follows: ART. 1. The citizens of one of the two countries, residing or established in the other, shall be free from personal military service, but they shall be liable to the pecuniary or material contribution which may be required by way of compensation from citizens of the country where they reside who are exempt from that said service. It will be observed that the treaty refers to citizens in general, which would embrace both native-born and naturalized citizens, and the pecuniary or material contribution which may be exacted is unlimited as to time or amount. We have, as I am informed, no such thing as a military exemption tax in the United States, or in any of the States, because the citizens are not required to perform military service, as in the manning of forts and arsenals, and the exercise of military discipline except in time of insurrection or invasion, or when temporarily called upon to execute the laws. With Switzerland the case is entirely different, because here it is thought necessary to keep up a regular army composed of citizens of all classes; so that this military exemption tax works in favor of one of the contracting parties only, and that provision of the treaty ought to be abolished. We are estopped from disputing the right of the Swiss Government to exact to the fullest extent the amount fixed by competent legislation from all American citizens residing or established here, for the construction of this clause of the treaty claimed by the Swiss Government has been conceded by the State Department to be substantially correct. In the dispatch of June 19, 1891, from Secretary Fish to this legation, it is stated: Its design (treaty) was simply to relieve the United States citizens from the obligation of personal military service, leaving them subject to any military contribution which may be exacted by way of commutation or otherwise from Swiss citizens who are exempted from personal military service, whether by reason of physical disability or for any other cause. The Swiss law of June 28, 1878, referred to in the order from the police and military department, provides as follows: Foreigners established in Switzerland are likewise subject to this tax, unless they are exempt therefrom in virtue of international treaties, or that they belong to a state in which the Swiss are neither liable to military service nor to the payment of any equivalent tax in money. It so happens that we have no law now in existence providing for a military tax. If it were otherwise, a native-born citizen of the United States residing in Switzerland would be worse off under the treaty than he would be without it, for without the treaty he would neither be subject to military service nor to the payment of a military tax. Since the treaty of 1850 with the Republic of Switzerland treaties have been concluded between Switzerland and Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, Holland, and Russia, expressly exempting their citizens from personal military service or from any tax in lieu thereof, and this is doubtless the reason why the order of the Swiss military department above referred to was confined to citizens of the United States. This matter has heretofore been brought to the attention of the Department of State, particularly by my predecessor, Mr. Winchester, in 1886. I respectfully ask the Department for permission to negotiate with the authorities of the Swiss Confederation with the view of securing an amendment to the provisions of the treaty of November 25, 1850, in respect to the subject referred to in this communication. I am, etc., JAMES O. BROADHEAD. [Inclosure in No. 32.-Translation.] Official circular of the police and military departments of the Canton St. Gall to the war commission, the district commanders and all section chiefs, concerning military tax of Swiss citizens in the United States of North America. With official circular of March 13, 1893, we have to inform you that, in accordance with article 2, section 1, of the treaty between Switzerland and the United States, of November 25, 1850, and article 2, lit. c., of the federal law concerning military taxes of the 28th June, 1878, the federal military department has decided: "Swiss citizens living in the United States can not be taxed here (i. e. in Switzerland) during their absence, but Swiss citizens returning from the United States, if they can not prove that they have served in the Army there or paid military tax there during their stay, shall be required to pay the military tax in Switzerland for and during the ten years last past." This department decision was made a law by the Bundesrath on December 19, 1893. We therefore instruct the district commanders to keep record of such Swiss cit |