No. 365.
Mr. Frelinghuysen to Mr. Valera.
Washington, March 21, 1884.
Sir: I have the honor to communicate to you, for your information, copies of a letter* addressed to me by the Secretary of the Treasury and my reply* thereto, touching a request made by the Spanish consul at Baltimore to be furnished by the collector of customs at that port with periodical certificates of the cargoes of sugar, molasses, and tobacco imported from Cuba and Porto Rico, giving the name and flag of the vessel, date of entry, port of clearance, number and description of packages, and weight in American pounds, &c. This request of Mr. Navarro, the consul, would appear to have been made under a misapprehension of the purport and scope of the third article of the agreement signed at Madrid, February 13, 1884. Such a request has not been made, so far as known, by any other consular officer of Spain in the United States.
From the reply made to Mr. Folger’s inquiry it will be seen that this Government construes the engagement in accordance with its evident intent, and will require its customs officers to give to any Spanish consul, whenever he may request it, a certificate in respect to the cargo of sugar or tobacco brought by any designated vessel to our ports. Although molasses is not mentioned in the agreement, it may be deemed comprised under the general phrase “sugar.”
It is, of course, evident that the agreement could not have contemplated requiring our customs administration to prepare, for the information of the Spanish consuls detailed periodical statements of every package of the articles in question brought to the United States from the Antilles. Besides entailing an amount of labor not necessary to compliance with the agreement and which this Government, even in the interest of its own revenues, could not well ask of any foreign Government under like circumstances, there is involved a question of responsibility which appears to be decisive. There is the distinction between courteously furnishing specific information where it may be needed and requested and an obligation to make a comprehensive and exact return, omitting not even isolated packages found in a general cargo, or entered by passengers as personal effects.
Accept, &c.,