File No. 763.72111/1133
The Chargé d’Affaires in Colombia (Harrison) to the Secretary of State
Bogotá, November 18, 1914.
[Received December 12.]
No. 116]
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt on the 16th instant of your telegraphic instruction of November 14, 7 p.m.,2 [Page 698] regarding the complaint made by the British and French Governments that the Colombian Government was not enforcing its neutrality proclamation. In accordance with your directions discreetly to inquire as to the facts and let you know, I lost no time in obtaining the opinion of my French and British colleagues, both of whom, as I have had the honor to report to-day in my telegram dated November 18, noon,1 were perfectly satisfied with the measures taken by this Government to insure strict neutrality.
The complaint was as much of a surprise to them as to me, owing to the fact that this Legation had been kept informed of the protests made by the British and French Legations early in September regarding the German station at Cartagena and interned German merchantmen, especially by the British Chargé d’Affaires, who had but lately expressed his satisfaction at the measures taken by the Colombian Government. Moreover, Captain Gaunt, British naval attaché at Washington, who is here for a week on a tour of inspection, assured me that he felt convinced of the perfect neutrality of the United Fruit Company’s wireless station at Santa Marta and that he was satisfied with Dr. Jorge Caicedo Abadia, the Colombian censor at Cartagena, who although in the midst of German and pro-German influences, would, he believed, maintain neutrality to the best of his ability. This was, however, the only “unknown factor” in his estimate. The Captain also felt that the Colombian Government had done its utmost. Mr. Bowie, the British Chargé, said that the Colombian Government was even substituting Colombians for the German employees of the wireless station at Cartagena.
The small German wireless station at San Andres is not yet working.
There are no wireless stations on the Pacific coast of Colombia and the small experimental installation in this city is only capable of receiving messages, which is about the status of another small outfit which Captain Gaunt tells me exists at Calamar on the Magdalena River.
In view of the above I felt warranted in stating that as far as I could ascertain, the Colombian Government was enforcing its neutrality proclamation.
Of course my report cannot be considered complete as I have no means of knowing if unneutral acts have been permitted on the long Colombian coast line from Panama to Ecuador. We have no consular officers in Buenaventura and Tumaco, but my British and French colleagues, who have representatives in those ports, have no news of any such acts.
As I had the honor to state in my telegram, neither of my colleagues had received advices from their respective Governments and both were at a loss to account for the complaint.
I have [etc.]