No. 857.
Mr. Romero to Mr. Bayard.
Washington , February 22, 1888. (Received February 23.)
Mr. Secretary: I have had the honor to receive your note of yesterday, whereby you acknowledge the receipt of those which I addressed to you on the 10th and 14th instant, in reference to the Zona Libre established in Mexico.
In the first of those notes I endeavored to clearly express the purpose which moved me to address them to you, and, as you say with good reason, they were in the nature of voluntary communications on my [Page 1285] part, not having sprang from any question pending between our two countries, and in view of which the Government of the United States had diplomatically assumed a determinate position in its relations with Mexico, and they do not therefore possess the character of an invitation to discuss the points therein presented or controvert opinions which they express.
Believing that, as well in the public opinion of this country as in official quarters, there have prevailed mistaken ideas with respect to the Zona Libre in Mexico, which might at length in some manner affect the good relations which happily exist between our two countries, and having given careful and conscientious attention to this matter at the time when I was in charge of the treasury department of the United Mexican States, I deemed that I was doing a service to those good relations by giving a concise, pimple, and at the same time exact account of an institution which has generally been believed in the United States to have been adopted in a spirit not very friendly to this country. The extract from the Congressional Record of the 17th instant, which you were pleased to send me with the note to which I am now replying, and which contains the part of the session of the Senate of the preceding day concerning the approval of a resolution whereby the President of the United States is requested to transmit to that body the correspondence not heretofore published in relation to this matter, offers, in effect, the occasion for the executive power to make my aforesaid notes public. Thanking you duly for your courtesy toward me in asking me if I have any objection to your submitting to the determination of the President the propriety of transmitting my notes to the Senate, I have to say that, even though for ray part I find no inconvenience in such transmission, I shall be entirely satisfied with the decision you may reach in the premises.
Be pleased to accept, etc.,