Mr. Romero to Mr.
Gresham.
[Translation.]
Legation of Mexico,
Washington, March 16, 1894.
(Received March 16.)
Mr. Secretary: I have the honor to forward to
you, with reference to your note of the 17th of January last, copy of a
note from Señor Mariscal, secretary of foreign relations of the United
States of Mexico, dated City of Mexico, the 5th instant, which I
received to-day, in which he communicates to me the reply of the
ministry of Hacienda (treasury) to the efforts made in order that the
Government of Mexico should determine what is proper with regard to the
decree approved by the Congress of the United States on the said 15th of
January to permit the reimportation, duty free, of Texan cattle that may
pass to Mexican territory for pasture.
Accept, etc.,
[Inclosure—Translation.]
Mr. Mariscal to
Mr. Romero.
Department of State, Office of Foreign
Relations,
Mexico, March 5,
1894.
The secretary of the treasury (de Hacienda) tells me in a
communication dated the 2d instant, as follows:
Your polite notes of 2d, 20th, and 22d of January last have
been received at this office, in which you are pleased to
transmit copies of those of our minister at Washington
relative to cattle that cross the frontier to pasture on our
territory and concerning the passage of the draft of a law
presented to the Congress of that nation by Mr. Thomas M.
Paschal, one of its members.
In reply I have the honor to inform you that as there is
still pending before the Senate a convention concluded in
1888 between Mexico and the United States for the reciprocal
crossing of cattle from one country to the territory of the
other, the President of the Republic does not consider it
opportune to make any decision at present with regard to the
decree approved by the American Congress on motion of the
member, Mr. Thomas M. Paschal, because it would seem that
the Executive was endeavoring to prejudge in some way an
affair which the Senate has not found it convenient to take
into consideration; thus the President thinks he should with
all the more reason abstain from a determination in the
matter, so marked is the opposition to that proposed
convention by the inhabitants and representatives in the
federal Congress of the frontier States, and on the other
hand the same American citizens who initiated the said
convention state that in May next will cease the reasons
which serve as the basis of their claim.
I copy this for you, referring to your note No. 666 of the 19th
January last.
I renew, etc.,