sides have been appalling, and the United States has
found occasion, in the interest of humanity, to carry
out the charitable desires of the American people,
to extend a measure of relief to the sufferers on either
side through the impartial medium of the Red Cross.
Beyond this the chief care of the Government of the
United States has been to make due provision for the
protection of its national resident in belligerent
territory. In the exercise of my duty in this
matter I have dispatched to Turkish waters a special-service
squadron, consisting of two armored cruisers, in order
that this Government may if need be bear its part
in such measures as it may be necessary for the interested
nations to adopt for the safeguarding of foreign lives
and property in the Ottoman Empire in the event that
a dangerous situation should develop. In the
meanwhile the several interested European powers have
promised to extend to American citizens the benefit
of such precautionary or protective measures as they
might adopt, in the same manner in which it has been
the practice of this Government to extend its protection
to all foreign residents in those countries of the
Western Hemisphere in which it has from time to time
been the task of the United States to act in the interest
of peace and good order. The early appearance
of a large fleet of European warships in the Bosphorus
apparently assured the protection of foreigners in
that quarter, where the presence of the American stationnaire
the U. S. S. Scorpion sufficed, tinder the circumstances,
to represent the United States. Our cruisers were
thus left free to act if need be along the Mediterranean
coasts should any unexpected contingency arise affecting
the numerous American interests in the neighborhood
of Smyrna and Beirut.
SPITZBERGEN
The great preponderance of American material interests
in the sub-arctic island of Spitzbergen, which has
always been regarded politically as “no man’s
land,” impels this Government to a continued
and lively interest in the international dispositions
to be made for the political governance and administration
of that region. The conflict of certain claims
of American citizens and others is in a fair way to
adjustment, while the settlement of matters of administration,
whether by international conference of the interested
powers or otherwise, continues to be the subject of
exchange of views between the Governments concerned.
LIBERIA
As a result of the efforts of this Government to place
the Government of Liberia in position to pay its outstanding
indebtedness and to maintain a stable and efficient
government, negotiations for a loan of $1,700,000 have
been successfully concluded, and it is anticipated
that the payment of the old loan and the issuance
of the bonds of the 1912 loan for the rehabilitation
of the finances of Liberia will follow at an early
date, when the new receivership will go into active
operation. The new receivership will consist
of a general receiver of customs designated by the
Government of the United States and three receivers
of customs designated by the Governments of Germany,
France, and Great Britain, which countries have commercial
interests in the Republic of Liberia.