File No. 711.1216M/153.
The Secretary of State to the Mexican Ambassador.
Washington, December 3, 1910.
Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note No. 381 of December 1, containing the information that your excellency’s Government agrees not to have recourse to the treaty, and that a simple exchange of notes between the embassy under your excellency’s worthy charge and this Department will be sufficient to authorize the construction on Mexican territory of the protective works along the Colorado River which may be necessary to prevent the flooding of the Imperial Valley. As fundamental bases for the said agreement, your excellency states that the Government of Mexico proposes the following conditions [etc.]:
In reply I have the honor to express the deep appreciation and thanks of this Department for the prompt attention given to this matter by your excellency and by the Government of Mexico.
Your excellency’s note was communicated to the Secretary of the Interior, who replied under yesterday’s date that he found the proposals entirely satisfactory, but suggested that paragraph 6, regarding the free importation of material be in terms made to include materials for subsistence, supplies, equipment, tools, and appliances, as well as materials used in the construction of the proposed work, it being thought that all these were intended to be included in the paragraph referred to. It will, of course, be understood that all such materials taken into Mexico by the contractors shall be used exclusively by them, and that such as are not consumed shall be returned to the United States at the completion of the work.
I have the honor also to repeat to your excellency the suggestion made in the Department’s note of November 28, that inasmuch as the levee to be permanently useful must be maintained in a state of adequate repair, this Department would be glad at once to take up with your excellency the question of the negotiation of a treaty in accordance with the provisions of which the proper maintenance of this levee might be accomplished.
Accept [etc.],