No. 344.
Mr. Frelinghuysen to Mr. Foster.
Washington, January 31, 1884.
Sir: Your dispatches No. 131 of December 27th and No. 135 of the 4th instant have been received. They throw considerable light on the negotiations lately conducted between yourself and the Ministers of State and of the Colonies looking toward a better understanding with regard to commerce between the United States and the Spanish West Indies. The text of the agreement signed January 2, which accompanied your No. 134, has just been received and affords occasion for drawing up the proclamation of the President suspending the additional ten per centum duty on products from the Antilles brought in Spanish vessels to the United States.
Enough was already known to satisfy this Government that the negotiation had been carried on with an equal desire on the part of Spain with that which we have shown to reach a broad understanding of the subject free from the technical considerations which have at times impeded it in the past. As we understand the agreement, it removes almost all of the difficulties in the way of that full and natural commercial intercourse which should exist between our ports and the Antilles. The good disposition of His Majesty’s Government has been shown in so many ways in this matter, that it can hardly be doubted that Spain will with equal cheerfulness remove the few remaining causes of complaint. The promised revision of the customs ordinances of Cuba, for example, cannot, it is thought, result otherwise than in the [Page 477] abolition of the present very objectionable system of disproportionate fines upon foreign shipping for constructive faults in a vessel’s papers, and the substitution for the moiety scheme of penalties some device more just and equitable which, if through error or excessive zeal misapplied, may be wholly undone by executive action. This subject, however, is so fully treated in the recent instructions of this Department that it is merely adverted to now in order that its importance in the relations of the two countries may be kept in view.
So, too, with respect to the consular fee based on the exported cargo. The agreement covers this as to the future, and so far as Antillean trade is concerned; but a just disposition of all pending questions would require that the remedy be made general and effective as to past exactions. These matters are commended to your discretion.
With relation to the fifth article of the agreement providing that the two Governments shall consider a commercial treaty for the enlargement of the Spanish West Indian trade with the United States, I may remark that the present seems a propitious time for entering upon such a consideration of a subject equally momentous to both. The coming of a new representative of His Majesty, preceded by the reputation won in fields of statecraft and literature, is opportune, and this Government will have much pleasure in giving careful attention to whatever propositions may be made to it by Señor Valera. It may be premature to consider now whether it may be possible to bring about such intimate and reciprocal intercourse as would make the relation between the Antilles and the United ‘States hardly inferior to that with the mother country, but that any commercial step in that direction would promise mutual benefit can hardly be doubted.
Congress having called for the correspondence anterior to the late agreeement, copies thereof have been prepared and transmitted by the President, at a recent date, to the Senate, with my report explanatory of the situation. The papers are now in the hands of the printer, and copies will be sent to you as speedily as maybe. For the present, I desire merely to congratulate you anew upon the progress you appear to have made toward a more perfect understanding of the mutual needs and wishes of the two countries in respect of the Antillean trade.
I am, &c.,