The Acting Secretary of State to the Argentine Chargé.1
Washington, July 21, 1910.
My Dear Mr. Chargé d’affaires: Our diplomatic representatives in Quito, Lima, and Santiago have promptly carried out the instructions this department sent them after our consultations of last week. Our minister at Lima, Mr. Combs, telegraphed the department July 15 that President Leguia and Minister Porras had that day declared confidentially that they approved the protocol, of which Mr. Combs had just handed them the English text. The Spanish text had not yet been received from Mr. Pardo.
Mr. Combs further telegraphed on the 18th of July that he had that day had another interview with the Peruvian President and minister for foreign affairs, at which the effect of the congressional action referred to in the last part of the protocol was discussed and explained. The President and minister for foreign affairs came to the conclusion that this part of the protocol was necessary, and assured Mr. Combs that the whole protocol would have their hearty support.
Mr. Freyre showed us yesterday, July 20, a translation of a telegram Mr. Pardo had received recently from Minister Porras, in which he instructed the former to inquire the opinion of the Department of State as to whether the Spanish text of the protocol using the words “se acuerde” should be construed to mean a boundary line agreed upon between the two parties or a boundary line indicated by the mediators in case they do indicate one.
[Page 490]The English text seems to me perfectly clear and, so far as our knowledge of Spanish in the department goes, we can not see that there is any serious ambiguity in the Spanish version.
From Ecuador our minister, Mr. Fox, sends a discouraging telegram dated July 18. The representatives of the three countries, had had a conference that day with the minister for foreign affairs at which the protocol was discussed. The latter agreed to accept the part with reference to mutual expressions of regret for the depredations, but said as to the rest of the protocol his Government could not recede from the position formerly outlined in notes to Mr. Fox, in which Ecuador insisted on the direct arrangement of the boundary in conformity with article 6 of the arbitration treaty. He said that his Government and country could not accept a postponement so indefinite as that implied in the provision agreeing to await a change of attitude on the part of the Spanish arbitrator, and that Ecuador could not recede from the declaration made by her representatives in Madrid, to the effect that the arbitration could not be continued except on the joint petition of both litigants in case a direct arrangement should prove unsuccessful. He also insisted that Colombia be included.
In President Alfaro’s message to Congress of June 1 he said explicitly and unconditionally that Ecuador had accepted the offer of mediation, only adding that Ecuador had suggested to the mediating powers that she deemed a direct arrangement advisable. The present position of the Ecuadorean Government, as reported by Mr. Fox, indicates a more uncompromising and aggressive attitude, and that Ecuador only accepts the continuation of the mediation on condition that it be modified, and that the proposed protocol be changed so as to differ virtually from the terms of the original offer of May 12.
If your instructions enable you to agree with me, I suggest that the best course at present is for the mediating powers to continue to bring to bear all possible pressure for the adoption by Ecuador of the protocol as it stands, that they allow ample time for the full effect of such pressure to operate at Quito, and that only if ultimately convinced that the success of this effort is impossible we then consult as to what modification might be devised, acquiesced in, and supported by the mediating powers.
I am sending a note similar to this one to Mr. Lima and also to Mr. Riano, the latter in pursuance of the decision reached by the three of us last week, to the effect that it is our duty, in the present circumstances, to comply with the request of the Spanish minister that he be kept fully informed of a negotiation with which his Government is so intimately connected.
I am, etc.,
- Mutatis mutandis to the Spanish minister and the Brazilian chargé.↩