Mr. Wharton to Señor Hurtado.
Washington , March 14, 1892 .
Sir: Your note of the 12th instant was not received at the Department until to-day, and very little opportunity is therefore afforded me to make any extended reply to the many important questions so ably discussed by you in view of the date fixed by the President for his action under section 3 of the tariff law, as advised in my note of January 7 last.
It would be to me a source of the deepest regret should you or your Government think the Government of the United States had in any way been wanting in friendly forbearance or lacking in a sincere spirit of conciliation and generous commercial reciprocity in the negotiations which it has sought to set on foot both with you, as the accredited representative of Colombia in this city, and through the United States minister at Bogota with the minister of foreign affairs of your own Government. But it is to be borne in mind that nearly eighteen months have passed since the Congress of the United States made the friendly offer to which the attention of your Government has been called, which action was expressly declared to be “with a view to secure reciprocal trade with countries producing” sugar, coffee, and the other articles named; and a year has transpired since you were specially invited to enter upon negotiations with a view to the adjustment of the commercial relations between the United States and Colombia on a permanent basis of reciprocity profitable alike to both.
The delay which has occurred has not been occasioned by this Government, as it has always been ready and anxious to take up the subject, and it has been actuated by a desire to come to an amicable commercial arrangement which would be mutually advantageous to both countries. In the few and brief interviews which you have held at the Department you have never submitted any proposition [Page 463] which could be regarded as within the spirit of the act of Congress above cited, but you have rather manifested a desire to sustain positions respecting international law which were in direct opposition to the principle set forth in said act and uniformly maintained by this Government.
In your note of 25th ultimo, which was the first communication received from you treating of the legislation of Congress, you set forth the reasons why your Government should not be expected to respond to said legislation in the manner indicated by Congress, and the only suggestion which your note contains which could be understood to be a proposition on your part was an indication of the intention of the President of Colombia to make certain recommendations to their National Congress for an extension of the free list, but even that was not accompanied by a detailed statement of the changes contemplated and no offer was made to consult or agree with this Government as to changes in your tariff which would result in special benefit to American products.
Your note of the 12th instant contains an able discussion of certain economic principles as to taxation and a further insistence, with added reasons, upon the position heretofore maintained by you that your Government might not be called upon to take action in the direction and by the method indicated by the Congress of the United States; but there is nothing in your note which could be accepted by the President as such a response to the invitation of Congress as would justify him, under the law, in suspending the action indicated in my note of 7th January last.
I can only repeat my disappointment that you have not been authorized or seen fit to submit to me some sufficiently definite proposition which might be regarded as the initiative and basis of negotiations; and I again renew to you, and through you to your Government, an earnest invitation to enter with me upon a consideration of the subject of the commercial relations between the two Republics with a view to reaching a reciprocity arrangement profitable alike to both. I firmly believe that such an arrangement is entirely practicable and that the interests of both countries counsel such a result; and I am pleased to have the authority of the President to assure you, that should we be able to reach an arrangement to be submitted by the President of Colombia to the National Congress at its next session, he would suspend by proclamation the effects of section 3 of the tariff law until the National Congress shall have the opportunity to act upon the arrangement agreed upon.
I beg you to communicate to your Government this assurance and to repeat to it the earnest desire of this Government to establish the commercial relations of the two countries on a basis of mutual advantage and just reciprocity.
Accept, etc.,
Acting Secretary.