The Acting Secretary of State to the Chilean Minister.
Washington, April 22, 1909.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 16th instant, stating that your Government’s offer of a reduced amount in settlement of the Alsop claim was due to the fact that the amount provided for the payment of certain debts of Bolivia by the treaty of peace concluded by Chile and Bolivia on October 20, 1904, was sufficient to pay only a pro rata to each creditor, and expressing the opinion that the claim of Alsop & Co. can not be defended diplomatically by the United States, for the reason that the firm is Chilean.
Referring to your note of July 31, 1908, in which was stated the offer of your Government to furnish to this department antecedents and information regarding the Alsop claim; to the department’s reply thereto of August 29, 1909, in which the department, accepting and relying upon that offer, requested that it be furnished with the evidence concerning the Alsop claim upon which the Government of Chile depended to justify its offer in settlement of the claim of a sum so much reduced from that due under the contract; and to your note of March 19 in which, in acknowledging department’s inquiry of March 18, you stated that as soon as the evidence called for had’ been received it would be forwarded to this department, the department desires now to call attention to the fact that it has not as yet received these documents.
The department regards this circumstance as confirmatory of your statement, made to Assistant Secretary Wilson during a conversation between Mr. Wilson and yourself on April 15, 1909, that the Government of Chile has no evidence concerning the merits of the Alsop claim which would justify that Government in offering to the Alsop claimants in settlement of their claim any sum less than that called for by the terms of the contract of 1876 with the Bolivian Government.
Accept, etc.,