Brulatour to M. Jules Ferry, July 11, 1884

Mr. Brulatour to M. Jules Ferry.

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the 8th instant, in relation to the request of my Government for reciprocal treatment when an American transatlantic cable company seeks the privilege of landing its cables upon the shores of France.

Your excellency states substantially that the treatment of reciprocity is not refused to the Commercial Cable Company, in whose behalf I have asked for the right of landing in France, but that this company, having only an indirect communication with the United States, was not entitled to the same terms granted to the French company, whose lines are direct; that the agreement of 1879 between France and the United States meant equal treatment of Americans and Frenchmen desiring to establish telegraphic communication across the ocean, and that the conditions imposed upon the Commercial Cable Company are exactly those which the French Government impose upon any French company situated in the same manner and making the same application.

I shall lose no time in making known this reply to my Government, but in awaiting its answer I may be permitted one remark.

Your excellency states that the Commercial Cable Company had accepted the condition, objected to now, affixed to the concession of the privilege of landing, when, by instruction of my Government, Mr. Morton thanked you for having made it. I must say here that Mr. Frelinghuysen became aware of the concession only through your communication of February, 1884 (no date), which did not mention “that the privilege thus granted was liable to be suppressed at any time, upon a year’s notice.” I must also repeat that the objectections of my Government have not in view the particular interests of the Commercial Cable Company, but a question of principle involving the interests of every concession.

I avail, &c.,