Mr. Romero to Mr. Blaine.
Washington, May 13, 1889. (Received May 14.)
Mr. Secretary: I have the honor to receive your note of this date, in which, referring to our previous correspondence relative to sanitary measures adopted in Mexico in regard to cattle, and especially to my note of January 23, 1888, you are pleased to inform me that you have received a communication from Honorable J. M. Rusk, Secretary of Agriculture, dated April 3, 1889, inclosing copy of a letter from Mr. J. M. Taylor, secretary of the Beef Producers’ and Butchers’ National Association, in which he states that “the Republic of Mexico is without any live-stock sanitary laws, and cattle are admitted into Mexico without restriction and without investigation as to whether they are diseased or have been exposed to disease.”
You insert in your note fragments of the correspondence had by your Department with Mr. Colman, late Commissioner of Agriculture, in [Page 639] which the views expressed by Mr. Taylor are repeated, and you close by remarking that “the cattle interests of Mexico will, no doubt, be promoted by the enforcement of such protective measures as experience has demonstrated are necessary to prevent the introduction and spread of contagious bovine diseases,” requesting me to communicate to my Government the views of the United States on this subject, and to inform you of the measures adopted or that may hereafter be adopted in Mexico for the establishment of a system of sanitary inspection of domestic and imported cattle.
In reply I have the honor to state that in the note which I addressed to the Department of State under date of January 9, 1888, I apprised it of the state of this question, as I understand it, and that, on the 23d of the same month, in compliance with a request contained in a note from Mr. Bayard of that date, in which he asked for information similar to that now desired by you, I requested my Government to send me such information.
I shall transmit your note to the Mexican Government without delay, again requesting it to send the desired information, and as soon as I receive it I will transmit it to your Department.
Be pleased, etc.,