422.11G93/999
The Ecuadoran Minister ( Elizalde ) to the Acting Secretary of State
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your kind note of December 26 last,2 which refers to my note of the 12th of the same month, and says that the Department of State has information to the effect that of the fourteen thousand (14,000) tons of cocoa mentioned in that correspondence, 10,875 have been sold, or contracted for shipment, in accordance with the particulars which you are pleased to give me.
These particulars are the same as those given me by Mr. E. Hope Norton, President of the Guayaquil and Quito Railway Company, and, according to his statement had to do with information procured by the agent maintained at New York by the Association of Agriculturists of Ecuador.
I have received no information on the subject from my government but have been officially advised that an order has been issued to place at the disposal of the bond-holders the sum of thirty-five thousand pounds sterling.
Although only a small part of the fourteen thousand tons contemplated in the existing contract will be imported into the United States, and that only after the restriction on cocoa imports shall have been removed and free importation into this country is allowed, in consequence of which it will no longer be a special concession to my government, it has adhered and does adhere to its promise to pay the sum of $859,740 out of the proceeds of the sale of those fourteen thousand tons.
[Page 172]By way of information only, I take pleasure in informing you also that I am officially advised that the deposits daily made to meet the payment of the bond-holders of the Guayaquil and Quito Railway Company, now amount to three thousand sucres, which is a result of the improved economic conditions in the country, due to the suspension of commercial impediments.
I avail myself [etc.]