Mr. Foster to Señor Hurtado.

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 5th instant respecting the subject of reciprocity of trade between the republics of the United States and of Colombia. Your note, in the first place, contains a reference to a series of interviews which took place between us at this Department in the month of July, with a statement, on your part, of the results of those interviews. You will remember that it was mutually understood that the interviews were of a strictly confidential and informal character and that unless they happily resulted in an agreement, which should be reduced to written form they were not to be regarded as committing either of us in any particular. So fully was this understanding observed that I returned to you all notes and memoranda which you had submitted to me when it became apparent that we could not reach an accord.

Under these circumstances I am not prepared to accept as a full or entirely satisfactory report of these interviews the results stated in your note. I venture to suggest that, in the interest of a friendly settlement of the question, it might have been better if you could have found it convenient to come to Washington and reopen with me the conferences by communicating the highly gratifying intelligence, contained in your note, of the action of the President of Colombia in seeking to obtain from your Congress such authority as will place him, in a great measure, on a parity of conditions with the President of the United States, and thus greatly facilitate our negotiations. While I desire to assure you that I am still actuated by the same cordial spirit of friendship which led me to invite you to the interviews of July last, a circumstance has occurred since that date which has materially changed the condition of affairs. Within a few days after our last interview, to wit, on July 28, you addressed me a note in which the Government of the United States is arraigned for unwarranted and unjustifiable violations of treaty stipulations, and a demand is made for a remedy to and reparation for the injuries which you charge are being inflicted on your country thereby.

I have delayed an answer to this note in order that I might ascertain whether this unusual and grave charge had been made under the specific instructions of your Government after full knowledge by it of our negotiations, and also in the hope that some way might be found to obviate the necessity of a reply in the terms called for by the language employed by you. It was, therefore, very pleasant for me to be informed through your note of the 5th instant that the President of Colombia had asked the National Congress to confer upon him the necessary power to negotiate with this Government a reciprocity arrangement. Such action on his part gives me the assurance that he can not entertain the belief that the Government of the United States is engaged in unjustifiable violations of solemn treaty stipulations entered into with his country. You must, however, readily comprehend, Mr. Minister, how great an obstruction exists in your note of July 28 to any friendly settlement of the reciprocity question.

With that grave allegation confronting me I do not feel justified in making any stipulations or assurances in the sense indicated in your note of the 5th instant. Besides, in our interviews referred to, I directed your attention to the fact that all the reciprocity arrangements we had made with other governments had been by exchange of notes, and I informed you that it was the wish of the President that a [Page 487] similar method-be followed in the case of Colombia. Should the Congress favorably respond to the application of the President of your country, and you should make the way clear for a renewal of our negotiations, I entertain a strong hope that we might reach a satisfactory settlement of this question, respecting which my Government has felt and continues to feel much interest, not unmixed with solicitude, because of its earnest desire to maintain with Colombia the most intimate and friendly commercial and political relations.

Accept, etc.,

John W. Foster.