File No. 422.11G93/829.
Minister Hartman to
the Secretary of State.
No. 153.]
American Legation,
Quito,
December 5, 1915.
Sir: Referring to the Department’s instruction
No. 83 dated October 23, 1915, I have the honor to report:
In compliance with said instruction, I presented the protest in my note
No. 162 dated November 24, 1915, addressed to the Minister for Foreign
Affairs, but have not yet received a reply. Upon receipt of the reply I
will report both its contents and the contents of my note of protest
above mentioned.
In further compliance with said instructions, I enclose herewith copies
of my note No. 130 of May 8, 1915, to the Minister for Foreign Affairs,
together with copies and translation of his reply thereto, of which
last-named document I telegraphed the substance to the Department in my
telegram of May 19, 4 p.m. I would have reported fully by mail the
contents of my protest as well as the reply of the Minister for Foreign
Affairs, but in the meantime the identical question raised by the
Minister for Foreign Affairs in his note above referred to had been
presented again in his note of May 14, to which I referred in my No. 118
dated June 4, 1915. It therefore did not seem to me essential to make
the report when the only effect could be to make a double presentation
of the same question to the Department.
I have [etc.]
[Inclosure 1.]
Minister Hartman
to the Minister for Foreign
Affairs.
No. 130.]
American Legation,
Quito,
May 8, 1915.
Mr. Minister: In compliance with an
instruction of my Government I have the honor respectfully to bring
to the attention of your excellency the substance of a communication
addressed to the Department of State by the Guayaquil & Quito
Railway Company.
That communication states that the Company is informed that the
“Chief Executive has been authorized to apply as much as forty per
cent of all the Government income to the payment of debts in current
accounts with the banks of the country, and to use for the same
purpose up to sixty per cent of the funds provided for public credit
and public works,” and that such a disbursement of the Government’s
income could not be carried out without infringing upon the
contractual duties which the Government has with the Guayaquil &
Quito Railway Company.
While of course my Government assumes that your excellency’s
Government does not contemplate any use of the revenues of the
country which will infringe the guaranty given the Railway Company,
and brings the matter to the attention of your excellency only in a
precautionary sense, yet it expresses the hope that it may receive
at an early opportunity a definite reply from your excellency’s
Government, both on the point raised in this note and the one raised
in my note No. 66 of May 16, 1914.
I avail [etc.]
[Page 369]
[Inclosure 2—Translation.]
The Minister for Foreign
Affairs to Minister Hartman.
No. 93.]
Ministry for Foreign Affairs,
Quito,
May 14, 1915.
Mr. Minister: I have the honor to
acknowledge receipt of your excellency’s note of the 8th instant, in
which you call my attention to the substance of a communication
addressed to the Department of State by the Guayaquil & Quito
Railway Company.
In reply I have the honor to say to your excellency the same that I
expressed to you in my note No. 192 of June 22, 1914, in which I
gave, in my opinion, a definite answer to that of your excellency
No. 66 of May 16 of the same year.
My Government regards acceptance of the intervention of any Power in
a matter in which diplomatic action has no legal place as
incompatible with the sovereignty of Ecuador and with its status as
a free and independent nation.
This excuses me from going into the details to which your excellency
refers in the note under acknowledgment.
The railway company is free to deal directly with our Ministry of
Public Works and to lay before it the claims that it considers
justified by the plans and acts of my Government. That Ministry is
the only avenue by which foreign companies, such as the Guayaquil
& Quito Railway Company, may approach my Government when, as in
the present case, its claims are not based on denial of justice.
Permit me to reiterate to your excellency the language of my note of
June 22 last where I say that, considering the spirit of justice
that inspires your excellency’s Government, and the Panamerican idea
of cordial and intimate relations which has been present always, and
of late especially, in the relations between Ecuador and the United
States, my Government hopes that the Government of your excellency
will not find in these questions matter for diplomatic
intervention.
The honesty and patriotism on which the leading men of a country
necessarily desire to base their administrative acts are antecedents
which must not be ignored in examining an accusation, even without
giving it full credence but entertaining it only in a precautionary
way.
It is to be supposed that in the present case my Government has no
thought of impairing obligations already established but, rather,
proposes to favor them directly or indirectly. The railway company
has not an atom more interest than the Government of Ecuador in the
faithful fulfillment of the contract between them, even in the part
of it which contains obligations imposed on the Government alone;
and the insistence of the Company on seeking shelter in diplomatic
action is certainly neither the most upright nor the most
appropriate way of settling the pending difficulties.
I avail [etc.]
