The Secretary of State to Minister Wilson.
Washington, December 16, 1907.
The telegram from Ambassador Reid on which cabled instructions were based was as follows:
[Here follows text of telegram from London, December 5, 1907.]
Our attitude and sentiment rest on the broad general purpose to elevate and benefit the native Africans as declared in the Berlin act, to which we are, however, not a party, and emphatically reaffirmed in the Brussels act of 1890, applicable to all dominion and control of civilized nations in Central Africa, to which we are a party. Our voice and sympathy are in favor of the full accomplishment of those declared purposes, and, while we are not directly interested in the administrative and financial details of the government of any one of the several districts of Central Africa embraced in the compact of 1890, we are free, and indeed morally constrained, to express our trust and hope that every successive step taken by the active signatories will inure to the well-being of the native races and execute the transcendent obligations of the Brussels act, in all its humanitarian prescription, especially as to article 2. In these regards the interests of all the signatories are identical. You will impress these considerations on your British colleague and in your discretion to any other of your colleagues who may consult you on the subject.
[To be continued in Foreign Relations, 1908.]