File No. 1502/145.
The British Ambassador to the Secretary of State.
Washington, February 24, 1909.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your note No. 540, of the 20th instant, on the subject of the treaty between the United States and the Republic of Colombia, and to say in reply that His Majesty’s Government are glad to receive the full explanation given by you of the view which the Government of the United States take of the circumstances which appear to them to place the Republic of Colombia in a wholly different relation to the Panama Canal from that in which other countries stand, and which as they conceive distinguish the concession to that Republic of exceptional treatment from any case in which the question of making a similar concession to any other country could hereafter arise. Without entering on any discussion of the argument by which the view of your Government is supported and illustrated, His Majesty’s Government are content to note that the United States Government hold that the right of the free passage for warships which the present treaty proposes to extend to Colombia is deemed by them to grow out of the entirely special and exceptional position of Colombia toward, the canal and the title thereto, and accordingly does not constitute a precedent, and will not hereafter be drawn into a precedent, for the exception of any other nation from the payment of equal dues for the passage of war vessels in accordance with such schedules as shall be hereafter constituted in conformity with the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, or for any other concession of a special nature to Colombia or to any other power.
I have accordingly the honor of stating to you that His Majesty’s Government consider that they can forego the making of such a protest as they had formerly contemplated and that they accept the assurance contained in your note.
I have, etc.,