No. 488.
Mr. Foster
to Mr. Fish.
Mexico, August 15, 1874. (Received August 27.)
Sir: On the 30th of June last Hon. Ramon Uriarte, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the republic of Guatemala, presented his credentials and was publicly received by the President of Mexico in this capital. Minister Uriarte is now engaged in conferences with the Mexican minister of foreign affairs, Hon. J. M. Lafragua, for the purpose of adjusting the question of the boundary-limits between the two republics, which has been a subject of dispute for some time past. Some unimportant disturbances have occurred on that frontier recently, but they have been occasioned by irresponsible adventurers, and are not likely to be the occasion of any serious trouble between the two governments.
In consequence of the opening of a mine, called the Oro Blanco, by an American company, of Arizona Territory, near the boundary of the State of Sonora, Mexico, several months ago, a question arose as to the exact location of the boundary-line between the United States and Mexico, which at one time threatened a conflict between the opposing American and Mexican claimants. I am informed by the United States consul at Guaymas that the controversy has been satisfactorily settled; Governor Safford, of Arizona, and Governor Pesquieva, of Sonora, each having appointed a surveyor to trace the line, resulting in locating the Oro Blanco mine some two miles from the Sonora limits. The President [Page 756] of Mexico, under a decree dated August 6, 1874, has established a frontier custom-house in Lower California, on the boundary-line of the United States, at a point called Tijuana.
The legislature of the State of Guerrero, at its recent session, passed an act conferring upon the governor of said State the faculty of expelling from its territory, without the usual forms of a legal trial, such foreigners as he might consider “pernicious.” The official journal of the government in this city has announced that the act of the legislature was in conflict with the federal constitution of Mexico, which confers the faculty of expelling “pernicious foreigners” exclusively upon the President of the republic) and it also states that the governor of Guerrero will not attempt to exercise the faculty, but, on the contrary, will ask the legislature, at its next session, to repeal its act.
In my last resumé of current events I noticed the attitude of the London council of foreign bondholders in regard to the Mexican debt. The subject has attracted marked attention in this country, and the action, of the English bondholders has been severely denounced by the Mexican press of all political parties.
The country continues in the enjoyment of the state of peace which has been mentioned in previous dispatches.
I am, &c.,