case. But I beg leave to observe that if the 15th of the present month is to be retained (and you do not intimate anything to the contrary) as the date on which the President will issue his proclamation suspending the free importation of coffee and hides of Colombian origin, it is hopeless to rely on communications from Bogota for any change of situation before said date. I have (yesterday) received written communications from Bogota acknowledging the receipt of my note of 8th January last transmitting copy of yours of the 7th of same month. I am directed therein again to express the regret with which the decision of the President of the United States respecting the Colombian tariff and the intimation contained in your said note have been received. I am further directed, however, to reiterate to you, for the information of the President, the assurance, in the most positive manner, that concurring in the spirit and object aimed at in section 3 of the United States tariff law, namely, the development of commercial intercourse, the President of Colombia will use all influence at his command to obtain from Congress at its next meeting such an extension of the list of nondutiable merchandise as will justify any action which the President may be pleased to take postponing until the meeting of Congress at Bogota in July next the suspension of the free entry into this country of coffee and hides of Colombian origin. Accept, etc., Mr. Wharton to Señor Hurtado. J. M. HURTADO. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, SIR: Your note of the 12th instant was not received at the Department until to-day, and very little opportunity is therefore afforded me to make any extended reply to the many important questions so ably discussed by you in view of the date fixed by the President for his action under section 3 of the tariff law, as advised in my note of January 7 last. It would be to me a source of the deepest regret should you or your Government think the Government of the United States had in any way been wanting in friendly forbearance or lacking in a sincere spirit of conciliation and generous commercial reciprocity in the negotiations which it has sought to set on foot both with you, as the accredited representative of Colombia in this city, and through the United States minister at Bogota with the minister of foreign affairs of your own Government. But it is to be borne in mind that nearly eighteen months have passed since the Congress of the United States made the friendly offer to which the attention of your Government has been called, which action was expressly declared to be "with a view to secure reciprocal trade with countries producing" sugar, coffee, and the other articles named; and a year has transpired since you were specially invited to enter upon negotiations with a view to the adjustment of the commercial relations between the United States and Colombia on a permanent basis of reciprocity profitable alike to both. The delay which has occurred has not been occasioned by this Government, as it has always been ready and anxious to take up the subject, and it has been actuated by a desire to come to an amicable commercial arrangement which would be mutually advantageous to both countries. In the few and brief interviews which you have held at the Department you have never submitted any proposition which could be regarded as within the spirit of the act of Congress above cited, but you have rather manifested a desire to sustain positions respecting international law which were in direct opposition to the principle set forth in said act and uniformly maintained by this Government. In your note of 25th ultimo, which was the first communication received from you treating of the legislation of Congress, you set forth the reasons why your Government should not be expected to respond to said legislation in the manner indicated by Congress, and the only suggestion which your note contains which could be understood to be a proposition on your part was an indication of the intention of the President of Colombia to make certain recommendations to their National Congress for an extension of the free list, but even that was not accompanied by a detailed statement of the changes contemplated and no offer was made to consult or agree with this Government as to changes in your tariff which would result in special benefit to American products. Your note of the 12th instant contains an able discussion of certain economic principles as to taxation and a further insistence, with added reasons, upon the position heretofore maintained by you that your Government might not be called upon to take action in the direction and by the method indicated by the Congress of the United States; but there is nothing in your note which could be accepted by the President as such a response to the invitation of Congress as would justify him, under the law, in suspending the action indicated in my note of 7th January last. I can only repeat my disappointment that you have not been authorized or seen fit to submit to me some sufficiently definite proposition which might be regarded as the initiative and basis of negotiations; and I again renew to you, and through you to your Government, an earnest invitation to enter with me upon a consideration of the subject of the commercial relations between the two Republics with a view to reaching a reciprocity arrangement profitable alike to both. I firmly believe that such an arrangement is entirely practicable and that the interests of both countries counsel such a result; and I am pleased to have the authority of the President to assure you, that should we be able to reach an arrangement to be submitted by the President of Colombia to the National Congress at its next session, he would suspend by proclamation the effects of section 3 of the tariff law until the National Congress shall have the opportunity to act upon the arrangement agreed upon. I beg you to communicate to your Government this assurance and to repeat to it the earnest desire of this Government to establish the commercial relations of the two countries on a basis of mutual advantage and just reciprocity. Accept, etc., WILLIAM F. WHARTON, Señor Hurtado to Mr. Blaine. LEGATION OF COLOMBIA, Washington, March 16, 1892. (Received March 17.) SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your note of the 14th instant, which reached me yesterday afternoon, in time to forward a copy thereof by to-day's mail from New York to the minister of foreign affairs at Bogotá, whose instructions I shall await respecting the matter contained in your said note. Accept, etc., J. M. HURTADO. Señor Hurtado to Mr. Blaine. LEGATION OF COLOMBIA, Washington, March 21, 1892. (Received March 21.) SIR: Although I inferred from the contents of your note of the 14th instant that the President would issue his proclamation on the day next then following, imposing import duties on certain products of Colombia, as intimated in your note of the 7th of January last; yet I have no notice, or proof, of an official character, establishing the fact that the said proclamation has been issued. May I ask you, therefore, to be good enough to furnish me with information on this point, and if not inconvenient, also a copy of the proclamation? Accept, etc., J. M. HURTADO. Mr. Wharton to Señor Hurtado. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 21st instant, and to inclose herewith a half-dozen copies of the President's proclamation of the 15th instant, suspending the free admission into the United States of certain articles the production of the Republic of Colombia. The brief delay in making formal communication of the President's action has been occasioned in order to permit the proclamation to be printed. Accept, etc., WILLIAM F. WHARTON, [A proclamation suspending the free admission into the United States of sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides, the production of Colombia.] BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. A PROCLAMATION. Whereas in section 3 of an act passed by the Congress of the United States entitled "An act to reduce the revenue and equalize duties on imports, and for other púrposes," approved October 1, 1890, it was provided as follows: "That with a view to secure reciprocal trade with countries producing the following articles, and for this purpose, on and after the first day of January, eighteen hundred and ninety-two, whenever, and so often as the President shall be satisfied that the Government of any country producing and exporting sugars, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides, raw and uncured, or any of such articles, imposes duties or other exactions upon the agricultural or other products of the United States, which in view of the free introduction of such sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides into the United States he may deem to be reciprocally unequal and unreasonable, he shall have the power and it shall be his duty to suspend, by proclamation to that effect, the provisions of this act relating to the free introduction of such sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides, the production of such country, for such time as he shall deem just, and in such case and during such suspension duties shall be levied, collected, and paid upon sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides, the product of or exported from such designated country" the duties hereinafter set forth: And whereas it has been established to my satisfaction, and I find the fact to be, that the Government of Colombia does impose duties or other exactions upon the agricultural and other products of the United States, which in view of the free introduction of such sugars, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides into the United States, in accordance with the provisions of said act, I deem to be reciprocally unequal and unreasonable: Now, therefore, I, Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by section 3 of said act, by which it is made my duty to take action, do hereby declare and proclaim that the provisions of said act relating to the free introduction of sugars, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides, the production of Colombia, shall be suspended from and after this fifteenth day of March, 1892, and until such time as said unequal and unreasonable duties and exactions are removed by Colombia and public notice of that fact given by the President of the United States, and I do hereby proclaim that on and after this fifteenth day of March, 1892, there will be levied, collected, and paid upon sugars, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides, the product of or exported from Colombia, during such suspension, duties as provided by said act as follows: All sugars not above number thirteen Dutch standard in color shall pay duty on their polariscopic tests as follows, namely: All sugars not above number thirteen Dutch standard in color, all tank bottoms, sirups of cane juice or of beet juice, melada, concentrated melada, concrete and concentrated molasses, testing by the polariscope not above seventy-five degrees, seven-tenths of one cent per pound; and for every additional degree or fraction of a degree shown by the polariscopic test, two hundredths of one cent per pound additional. All sugars above number thirteen Dutch standard in color shall be classified by the Dutch standard of color and pay duty as follows, namely: All sugar above number thirteen and not above number sixteen Dutch standard of color, one and three-eighths cents per pound. All sugar above number sixteen and not above number twenty Dutch standard of color, one and five-eighths cents per pound. All sugars above number twenty Dutch standard of color, two cents per pound. Molasses testing above fifty-six degrees, four cents per gallon. Sugar drainings and sugar sweepings shall be subject to duty either as molasses or sugar, as the case may be, according to polariscopic test. On coffee, three cents per pound. On tea, ten cents per pound. Hides, raw or uncured, whether dry, salted, or pickled, Angora goat skins, raw, without the wool, unmanufactured asses' skins, raw or unmanufactured, and skins, except sheepskins, with the wool on, one and one-half cents per pound. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington this fifteenth day of March, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-two, and of the independence of the United States of America the one hundred and sixteenth. [SEAL.] By the President: WILLIAM F. WHARTON, BENJ. HARRISON. Acting Secretary of State. Señor Hurtado to Mr. Blaine. LEGATION OF COLOMBIA, Washington, March 23, 1892. (Received March 23.) SIR: I have to-day had the honor to receive your note of yesterday, together with several printed copies of the proclamation issued by the President of the United States of America on the 15th instant, imposing, from and after that day, import duties to be levied, collected, and paid upon sugars, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides, the produce of, or exported from, Colombia, on their introduction into the United States. The imposition of import duties by the Government of the United States on articles of Colombian produce, while the like articles from other countries are admitted free from such duty, establishes a discrimination against Colombian produce in favor of goods of like character imported from other countries, which my Government holds to be contrary to the spirit and express stipulations of the treaty of AP FR 94-30 1846, still in force. It therefore becomes my duty to request you to take notice that all rights of Colombia under said treaty, directly or indirectly bearing upon the provisions of the above-referred to proclamation, issued on the 15th instant, are and remain reserved, to be urged, if deemed expedient, at any future time or times. Accept, etc. J. M. HURTADO. Señor Hurtado to Mr. Blaine. LEGATION OF COLOMBIA, Washington, March 25, 1892. (Received March 26.) SIR: Viewing the payment of import duties, to which hides and coffee, the produce of Colombia, are subjected upon their introduction into the United States as an existing fact, on the justice of which it is neither my purpose nor intention to touch in the present communication, I beg to observe that there are many nations which gratuitously enjoy the privilege of importing into the United States of America, hides and coffee, the produce of the respective country, under section 2, of the law of 1st October, 1890, and therefore exempt from duty The Argentine Republic, Uruguay, Mexico, the Netherland Colonies, Chile, and Peru, may be taken as examples of the nations referred to. To these, the provisions of the second section of the tariff law freely give the privilege of introducing into this country, exempt from import duty, hides and coffee of their own production. It is, therefore, obvious that particular favors in respect to commerce are freely granted by the United States of America to certain nations; and, consequently, that one of the two prerequisite conditions laid down in article 2 of the existing treaty of 1846, either of which conditions being fulfilled is sufficient to give effect to the respective stipulation in said article, has been called into existence. Under these circumstances I am directed to represent to the Government of the United States that the Government of Colombia maintains that the favor which is gratuitously and freely granted to other nations, as above set forth, should immediately become common to Colombia, who can not be deprived the enjoyment thereof without the violation of express treaty stipulations. Trusting you will concur in the correctness and justness of these conclusions my Government further instructs me to request that measures may be taken that will render operative the right accruing to Colombia under the above-stated condition of things. Accept, etc., J. M. HURTADO. Señor Hurtado to Mr. Blaine. LEGATION OF COLOMBIA, Washington, May 11, 1892. (Received May 14.) SIR: I beg leave to offer some observations on the report of Hon. William F. Wharton, Acting Secretary of State (vide Ex. Doc. No. 68, Fifty-second Congress, first session), to whom was referred the resolu tion of the Senate of the 21st of March last, wherein the President was |