Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, For the Year 1887, Transmitted to Congress, With a Message of the President, June 26, 1888

No. 480.
Mr. Bayard to Mr. Manning.

Department of State,
Washington, July 12, 1887.

No. 131.]

Sir: I have received your No. 167, of the 29th ultimo, and have to approve your rejoinder to Mr. Mariscal in the matter of the complaint of Messrs. Pomares & Cushman against the action of the Mexican customs authorities at Progreso.

By remitting the penalty for the failure of the shippers to specify the wicks (pábilo) as of cotton, the treasury department of Mexico abundantly justifies this Department’s complaint of such an imposition as an unjust impediment to trade carried on in good faith. The other penalty for the omission of a prescribed certificate appears to have been applied in strict conformity with a Mexican revenue law, of which, however onerous, the shippers must be presumed to have been cognizant. This ends the incident, but the principle of free and more generous commercial intercourse, at which the Department’s instructions aimed, is left untouched.

I am, etc.,

T. F. Bayard.