Mr. Gresham to Señor Peralta.
Washington , May 18, 1893 .
Sir: I have carefully considered the note you did me the honor to address me, under date of 12th ultimo, soliciting the mediation of the Government of the United States with that of Colombia, to the end [Page 288] that the arbitration of the disputed boundary between Costa Rica and Colombia, under the convention of December 25, 1880, and the additional convention signed at Paris January 20, 1886, be revived and continued before Her Majesty the Queen Regent of Spain, as arbitrator, notwithstanding the acceptance by Her Majesty of the notification made by the Colombian Government that the arbitration has lapsed through omission to submit the necessary proofs within the term prescribed by the said conventions.
The subject has also been the occasion of several personal conferences, in which you have orally presented and fortified the views of your Government in this regard.
The request presented by you in behalf of your Government, besides asking the Government of the United States “to exert its most friendly and most earnest efforts to induce Colombia * * * to withdraw its declaration that the period of arbitration has elapsed and once more to request the Government of His Catholic Majesty to accept the office of arbitrator; and in case of the nonacceptance of the Spanish Government, to submit the case to the decision of the President of the Argentine Republic,” puts forward the alternative proposition that, in the event of the President of the Argentine Republic not accepting, the Governments of Costa Rica and Colombia shall come to an understanding whereby the office of arbitrator shall be tendered to President Cleveland, and asks that these propositions be submitted to the Government of Colombia. I observe that you base your advocacy of such mediatory action on the part of the United States upon the assumption that the United States is a party to the conventions of 1880 and 1886, and should, therefore, “maintain the arbitration provided for in those instruments, and demand that it be maintained in full force, without the conclusion of any new treaty of arbitration, for which the Government of Colombia has expressed its desire to that of Spain.”
Were the United States indeed, as you claim, a party to the interrupted agreement to arbitrate, it would, of course, be quite incompatible with the position of a party in interest to propose submission in an alternative event of the question at issue to his own decision as arbitrator. Under no circumstances, in fact, could the Government of the United States carry its mediatory good offices to the extent of proposing itself as arbitrator, even if excluding the imputation of being itself an interested party to the arbitration.
I am not, however, disposed to admit your deduction that the Government of the United States is a party to the arbitration negotiated between Costa Rica and Colombia. The correspondence you cite, and an examination of the Departments correspondence on the subject show, that upon the conclusion of the convention of December 25, 1880, the United States gave timely notice to the contracting governments and to the proposed arbitrators that this Government would not be bound by any results of an arbitration to which it was not a party, should the rights of the United States or of citizens of the United States in the disputed territory be affected thereby. Subsequently when, in 1886, the powers entered into a supplementary covenant to respect the rights of third parties whatever the result of the arbitration might be, they thereby merely recognized as valid the notification theretofore given by the United States, and met the expressed reservation not only as enunciated by the United States but in favor also of any third power, even had the latter made no reservation of ultimate rights. But this conventional agreement of the two powers no more operated to make the United States a party to the litigation than it could have operated [Page 289] to include therein any other third power whose right it professed to respect—such as Nicaragua, for example.
While holding that the Government of the United States is in nowise a party to the arbitration, and therefore in no sense interested in upholding the arbitration and advocating its continuance, I am equally unable to act upon the request of your Government that the good offices of this Government be employed with that of Colombia, in the alternative you mention, to cause the President to be chosen as arbitrator. Apart from the obvious consideration that the office of arbitrator should come, if at all, unsought, the attitude of reserve which the United States Government has hitherto been constrained to occupy in this question for its own protection and to safeguard American interests, would effectually preclude any suggestion that the Executive of this Government be invited to decide it as a judge.
In conclusion, I feel that the position of the Government of the United States, as the impartial and equal friend of both Costa Rica and Colombia, makes it inexpedient to show its desire for the harmonious settlement of the dispute between those countries by taking sides with either.
Should it be the wish of the two governments, the President would gladly render any service he consistently could to aid those republics to compose their differences, but he can not, as matters stand, consistently advocate the contention of either, nor make the United States a party to their controversy, nor offer himself as an arbitrator.
Accept, etc.,