File No. 837.77/101.
The British Ambassador to the Secretary of State.
Washington, February 27, 1913.
Sir: I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 25th instant in which you inform me that owing to representations made to you by the Cuban North Coast Company, the United States Minister in Havana has been instructed to suspend action on the instructions previously sent to him.
These instructions were, as you informed me in your note of the 8th of February, to the effect that Mr. Beaupré should bring the matter again to the attention of the Cuban Foreign Office, and should point out that the positive and seemingly well-defined attitude assumed by Great Britain in this matter appeared to require that the questions involved should receive the most serious consideration by the Cuban Government.
Action on such instructions, the purport and effect of which were, as was understood from your note of February 8th, to convey to the Cuban Government the need for careful investigation of a grave question before final action was taken, would not seem to be prejudicial to the position of any parties having a legitimate and honest claim to have its interests considered and justly treated by the Cuban Government and it is with regret that I have to report to my Government the alteration which it has been thought fit to make in your instructions to the United States representative in Havana. I understand that His Majesty’s Government has addressed a communication to the American Embassy in London upon the subject, and I cannot but express the hope that you will think fit upon further consideration to allow the instructions to be presented so as to intimate the advice of your Government that no action tending to create vested interests should be now taken, but that the matter should be reserved without prejudice until the coming in of a new President in Cuba who may be expected to deal with it in an impartial spirit.
I have [etc.]