File No. 819.74/37.

Minister Price to the Secretary of State.

[Extract.]
No. 69.]

Sir: I have the honor to report that on this day I am in receipt of a Foreign Office note from Señor Lefevre, Secretary of Foreign [Page 1041] Affairs of Panama, in which he states that his Government is anxious to enter into an agreement as promptly as possible for the interchange of wireless messages.

A copy of said note and its translation in duplicate are enclosed.

It will be noted that Señor Lefevre in his note makes the impression that his Government has in view the establishment by it of wireless stations in the Republic, and that he names the coasts of San Bias and Bocas del Toro on the Atlantic side and the Darien on the Pacific side as the locations, where his country is urgently in need of wireless stations.

In asking recently if I had heard from Washington regarding the plans of our Government with respect to establishing its wireless stations here, Señor Lefevre remarked that his Government would want to have its own employees in charge of the stations in the Republic of Panama and that this would be a necessity in the San Bias region, inhabited by uncivilized Indians.

I have [etc.]

Wm. Jennings Price
.
[Inclosure—Translation.]

The Minister for Foreign Affairs to Minister Price.

Mr. Minister: I have the honor to address your excellency with reference to your kind note No. 8 of last month and to inform you that my Government desires to enter into an agreement with that of the United States at the earliest possible moment for the interchange of wireless messages between the stations which the Republic has in view of establishing and those actually operating and which shall be operated in the Canal Zone.

As I informed his excellency the Secretary of War of the United States, at an interview held in Culebra during his recent visit to Panama, my Government is urgently in need of establishing wireless stations on the coast of San Bias and Bocas del Toro, on the Atlantic, and in the Darien, on the Pacific.

The development of these rich regions, as well as the police patrolling of these coasts to prevent contraband, demands imperatively the establishment of wireless stations above referred to and which my Government wishes to carry out in accord with your excellency’s Government.

Thanking your excellency for a definite answer on this important affair,

I avail [etc.]

E. T. Lefevre
.