No. 845.
Mr. Bayard to Mr. Romero.
Department of State,
Washington, January 6,
1888.
Sir: Referring to a correspondence lately had
with you in respect to the quarantine of ninety days declared by the
authorities of the Territory of Arizona against the importation of
cattle from Mexico, and especially to my note of the 7th ultimo,
informing you that the order in question had been suspended owing to
questions affecting its constitutionality, I have now the honor to
communicate to you, for your information, copy of an extract from a
report made to the governor of Arizona Territory by the chairman of the
Territorial Live-Stock Sanitary Commission, and transmitted hither with
a letter from the Acting Secretary of the Interior, dated the 4th
instant. This report has been laid before the Department to illustrate
the condition existing in Mexico which seemed to require the adoption of
measures to prevent the introduction of contagious disease through the
unrestricted importation of cattle from that country.
You will observe that the measure originated in the absence of all
sanitary preventives of the importation of diseased cattle from other
countries to Mexico, whence they or cattle contaminated by contact with
them might readily come to the United States, and that at the same time
a like quarantine was declared against the State of Missouri, where the
preventive sanitary regulations were deemed to be defective and
insufficient to insure complete protection. This fact seems to
abundantly show that no discrimination against Mexico, such as your
correspondence suggested, could have been intended.
When, as now, great disquietude exists among cattle-growers throughout
the United States, owing to the prevalence of deadly contagious diseases
of live-stock in many countries which maintain frequent and rapid [Page 1260] steam communication with the
countries of the American continent, requiring the importation of
contagion to be guarded against in every way, even to the extent of
impeding the free relations of exchange between the several States by
the adoption of constitutional sanitary measures, it would be reassuring
to know that Mexico, a coterminous country, had adopted and enforced
adequate steps to prevent the importation of diseased cattle from
abroad, and to discover and eradicate contagion where it may exist in
Mexico.
Accept, etc.,
[Inclosure.]
Mr. Bruce to
Mr. Zulick.
[Extract.]
Prescott, Arizona, December 13, 1887.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the
receipt of your communication of the 9th instant, requesting me to
state to you, owing to complaints made by the Mexican Government to
the Secretary of State, at Washington, the conditions which existed
in Mexico that compelled the commission at its last meeting to
require you to issue a proclamation placing in quarantine for ninety
days all cattle that were being imported into Arizona from that
country. The conditions, which I shall gladly explain to you, are
these: At a conference of the commission, in August last, the
veterinary surgeon of the Territory submitted to it a verbal report
of the ravages of pleuro-pneumonia among cattle on the continent of
Europe, in the Dominion of Canada, and in the United States. After a
proper consideration of this report, it was decided by the
commission that it was not only necessary to enforce stringent
regulations in regard to importations of cattle into Arizona from
States and countries where pleuro-pneumonia among cattle was
declared to exist, but also from those States and Territories and
countries which were exporting cattle to Arizona and had provided no
sanitary regulations for the protection of their live-stock
interests against this dread disease. Among the latter class it was
discovered that the State of Missouri had insufficient sanitary
regulations, and the Republic of Mexico, from all information
received, possessed none at all. You were therefore requested by the
commission to quarantine the Territory, not only against the State
of Missouri, but also against the Republic of Mexico. In making
complaint is it possible that the latter country expects that the
Territory, to avoid a scourge that would annihilate one-third of its
taxable values, would discriminate against the State of Missouri,
that had only partially failed to adopt proper sanitary measures,
and place no restrictions on importations of cattle from a foreign
nation which has no live-stock sanitary regulations whatever?
Without such restrictions, what is to keep cattle from being
imported into Mexico from even the State of Missouri, and then
brought back and turned loose at the will of the owner, within the
borders of Arizona! What is to prevent, under such conditions,
pleuro-pneumonia from being introduced into Mexico from some
infected district on this continent or the continent of Europe, and
thence being conveyed through the channels of its exports into
Arizona f Finally, for what purpose are restrictions exercised at
all in one direction, where they are needed, when cattle can be
imported without surveillance in another direction, where health
restrictions are still more needed? Such were the questions that
arose for the consideration of the commission, and thus Mexico was
quarantined, not because we had positive knowledge that contagious
disease now actually exists there, but because it is liable to
become infested with it at any time from lack of sanitary
regulations to be imported thence into Arizona at will, and be duly
transmitted to the herds of the Territory to their destruction.
It is the purpose of the Commission, although this quarantine has
been temporarily suspended because the section of the act of the
legislature under which it was authorized has been declared in
conflict with certain Federal statutes, and is therefore
unconstitutional, to lay the extreme peril which now threatens
Arizona cattle interests in the direction of Mexico before the
Federal Government and to claim relief at its hands.
The Commission at its present meeting will ask you to co-operate with
it, to achieve the protection that is needed, and lope we may have
your official aid.
With expressions of personal and official regard,
I am, etc.,