Mr. Blaine to Señor Pedro Montt.
Washington, January 27, 1892
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge your favor dated the 23d instant, but not received by me until Monday, the 25th. I beg to comment on two or three of its recitals. I think from zeal for your country you have made some mistakes, which I shall proceed to correct.
You are right in saying that I consider the proceedings of the Government of Chile in making the judicial investigation of the unhappy affair at Valparaiso entirely praiseworthy. But you will remember that as early as the 25th of November I complained of the length of the judicial proceedings, and from time to time renewed the complaint, saying to you very lately that the court had already been eighty days in session considering a matter which, in the United States, would have been wholly disposed of in two or three weeks. You replied that the Spanish law was slow in its process but exact in its conclusions; and with your statements I had to be content, though impatient for a final judgment.
Your offer of arbitration was never unconditional and exact. Had it been I would have insisted on your reducing it to writing; for it would have been my duty to lay it before the President for consideration. But I was unable to report a mere verbal exchange of views between us as an agreement to arbitrate. You did say to me several times that in that distant future, when the Chilean court should render its judgment (if the United States should not be satisfied with it), the two countries could arbitrate the matter. And even then you always maintained that Chile would not voluntarily propose arbitration herself, but would do so when requested by some friendly power to take that course. On one occasion you mentioned Spain as a nation likely to intervene with Chile most effectively. Your mention of arbitration was always as a method to be adopted in the future if we were not content, as I have said, with the judgment of the court. You remarked that to adopt it before would be discrediting the judgment of the court in advance. You always looked to the future for the proposal and acceptance of arbitration.
You say in your note:
I took occasion to inform you on the 1st of January that my Government authorized me to conclude an agreement looking to arbitration, and my Government subsequently approved the agreement concluded by me.
And yet you do not pretend that a word was ever written of the agreement which you say we made between us. It is impossible that I ever sought to bind the Government of the United States in that way. It would have been in the highest degree imprudent for me to do so.
[Page 352]In regard to the Matta note, which was a subject of contention between us, you sum it up by the following declaration:
I added, however, that it was far from being the purpose of my Government to act in a manner at all offensive to the President of the United States or to any member of his Cabinet, and that Mr. Matta’s note, if rightly interpreted, admitted of no such construction.
I afterwards had the honor to inform you that I had received instructions from my Government to inform that of the United States that, considering the views expressed by Messrs. Buchanan and Webster in 1849 and 1850, that the messages sent by the President to Congress are domestic communications which can not serve as a basis for the interpretation by foreign powers or their representatives, my Government had no objection to striking out of the note of December 11 such words as might be considered disagreeable by the United States Government.
By your own statement you evidently attempted to justify the Matta note. I certainly could not accept your language, and never did accept language of that kind, as an apology sufficient for the case. The Matta note was highly discourteous to the President and the Secretary of the Navy, imputing to them untruth and insincerity. Such language does not admit of conditional or contingent apology, which you offered. It could be apologized for only by a frank withdrawal. You always contended that it was a communication between officers of your own Government, and that it was not proper for this Government to take any cognizance of it. You quoted the well-known declaration in the Hülsemann case in regard to the message of a President to Congress not being subject to criticism in a foreign country. You did not see the great difference involved by your Government sending the Matta circular to all the legations of Chile and requesting its several ministers to publish it; so that Chile was not only responsible for the discourteous language, but for its publication throughout the civilized world. That you did not comply with Chile’s request to publish it here was the strongest proof of your own disapproval of the note.
In regard to Mr. Egan, you complained many times and very bitterly to me. Especially was he deserving of censure, you thought, for not communicating to his Government the brutal murder of some young men who were slain by order of Balmaceda. When on the next day I showed you the dispatch of Mr. Egan, speaking of the incident in severe and proper terms, you acknowledged that you were mistaken. I thought you would be satisfied, but you again spoke disparagingly of Mr. Egan, and I said somewhat impatiently, “Why do you not demand his recall, instead of constantly disparaging him?” intending thereby not to favor his recall, but to put a stop to the frequent mention of Mr. Egan’s name.
In referring to the question you remarked:
You were pleased to acknowledge that the Government of Chile had a right to ask that a change should be made.
Undoubtedly she has that right, provided she assigns a reason. You are too well skilled in diplomatic usuage to be reminded that when a nation is pleased to declare that a minister is persona non grata, she is expected to assign a reason therefor. We have twice had occasion to ask Great Britain to recall her minister, and in each ease we gave a reason why the minister had ceased to be useful. It is hardly necessary to observe that conditions which we complied with ourselves would likewise be exacted of Chile.
I have thus frankly endeavored to correct some misapprehensions of yours in order that the record of the State Department of the United States shall be kept exact, and in all its proceedings shall be proved consistent.
Accept, sir, the renewed assurances of my highest consideration.