I have accordingly had prepared a copy and a translation of the same, and
both will be found inclosed.
The note of the minister illustrates the increasing gravity of this now
historic dispute, the sincerity with which Venezuela seeks to secure the
submission of the matter to arbitration, and the earnestness of her
desire for the exercise of the good offices of the United States in that
behalf.
[Inclosure in No.
36—Translation.]
Señor Rojas to
Mr. Haselton.
Caracas, December 7,
1894.
Most Excellent Sir: The question pending
between Venezuela and Great Britain in reference to the limits
between the Republic and the Demerara colony has occupied for
several years, as your excellency knows, the attention of the
civilized world, and has led the press of many European and American
countries, including the United States, to point out the necessity
of determining, once for all, whether the theoretic equality of
States merits actual respect, or whether superior strength and
greater material power can override the doctrines and principles of
international law.
This question acquires day by day a more serious aspect on account of
the proceedings taken by the agents of England, who, disregarding
the conciliatory advances of Venezuela, have, especially since 1886,
been extending the British jurisdiction into territory which the
Republic considers as appertaining to her.
Within the eight years last past several efforts have been made for
an adjustment equitable to both parties with a view to ending the
conflict, as is shown by the sending of the commissioners to London
for the purpose of treating upon the question directly with the
Government of Her Britannic Majesty. The most recent was last year,
and in that, as can be seen by your excellency in the Yellow Book
presented to Congress in 1894, the Venezuelan Government showed a
most evident desire to end the question without prejudice to any
principle of law, but, on the contrary, by a legal arbitration such
as England herself resorts to and recommends in analogous cases.
The persistency of the British Government in declining to submit to
arbitration that part of the territory that it has occupied some
years made useless the action of the last Venezuelan commissioner,
and rendered inefficient the just proposals of the executive power
of the Republic, and stimulated the ambition of certain agents of
the colony who have ever in view the inviting prospects offered by a
territory rich as are few others in natural products.
Some of them presented a motion in the legislative chamber of
Demerara, on the 24th of October last, relative to the opening of a
road that should connect the Upper Barima with the Cuyuní, or the
Yuruán, which involves a new plan of usurpation, and tends to make
more difficult the peaceful settlement of this controversy.
The secretary of the colony requested that the matter be deferred
until he had consulted the ministry for the colonies, and, what is
still more serious, until he should have obtained its approval of a
petition forwarded to it, in order to secure the power to raise a
large loan out of which might be taken the necessary amount for the
opening of the projected road.
The Venezuelan Government, through its consul at Demerara, has
already given notice to the governor of the colony that the carrying
[Page 846]
out of the project (to
wit, that relative to the road from Barima to Cuyuní) would produce,
without doubt, a collision with the Venezuelan authorities in that
region, and would be the cause of additional acritude in a
controversy which it is important to both parties to carry on in a
conciliatory manner.
As your excellency will understand, the conflict assumes already a
threatening aspect, as the authorities of the colonies are disposed
to extend still more their jurisdiction, under the pretext of
uniting two points of the territory of Guayana, and thus to
penetrate into regions where the Republic has already established
regular stations.
In view of this, the Venezuelan Government, ever solicitous to
exhaust all proper means of arriving at a friendly settlement, has
resolved to inform your legation of the new danger which has arisen
and to urge hereby the Government of the United States to exercise
its efficient and direct intervention, a request which some time ago
our minister plenipotentiary at Washington presented to the
Department of State, and has since frequently reiterated.
The cooperation of your excellency would, without doubt, be
productive of direct results, as it would rest on sound principles
and emanate from one who, like your excellency, represents a
Republic which rests its public acts upon grounds of justice and
right. And, as moreover, the Government of the United States can
not, without abandoning its dearest traditions, contemplate with
indifference the disregard by a foreign power of the legitimate
territorial rights of an American nation, it is to be hoped that its
moral action be now as full and decisive in the matter as the
magnitude and character of the threatened interests indicate, call
for, and require.
The matter which I have explained to your excellency is almost as
important to the United States as to Venezuela herself. The control
by England of the entrance to the mouth of our great fluvial artery,
and of some of its tributaries, would expose to constant peril the
industry and commerce of a large portion of the New World, would, in
fact, bring into ridicule the famous and salutary Monroe doctrine,
and would establish abusive practices which in the end might make
illusive for some American countries their own political entity as
free and independent States.
I most sincerely ask that your excellency will be pleased to
interpret the foregoing ideas to the Government of the United
States.
I renew, etc.,
