Sir Julian Pauncefote to Mr. Blaine.
Sir: I have received a dispatch from the Marquis of Salisbury with reference to the passage in your note to me of the 4th instant, in which you remark that in 1888 his lordship abruptly closed the negotiations because “the Canadian government objected,” and that he “assigned no other reason whatever.”
In view of the observations contained in Lord Salisbury’s dispatch [Page 452] of the 20th of June, of which a copy is inclosed in my last preceding note of this date, his lordship deems it unnecessary to discuss at any greater length the circumstances which led to an interruption of the negotiations of 1888.
With regard, however, to the passage in your note of the 4th instant above referred to, his lordship wishes me to call your attention to the following statement made to him by Mr. Phelps, the United States minister in London, on the 3d of April, 1888, and which was recorded in a dispatch of the same date to Her Majesty’s minister at Washington.
“Under the peculiar political circumstances of America at this moment,” said Mr. Phelps, “with a general election impending, it would be of little use, and indeed hardly practicable, to conduct any negotiation to its issue before the election had taken place.”
I have, etc.,