Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress December 3, 1906, (In two parts), Part I
Chargé Richardson to the Secretary of State.
Petropolis, May 17, 1906.
Sir: Referring to my dispatch No. 162, inclosing a copy of the Brazilian President’s message to Congress, I now have the honor to inclose an excellent translation of it from the Brazilian Review of May 15, 1906.
I have the honor to be, etc,
Chargé d’ Affaires ad interim.
[Inclosure.]
Our relations with foreign powers continue to be satisfactory, it having always been my endeavor to draw closer the bonds which unite us to them.
A treaty of arbitration was signed in this city on September 7 by the plenipotentiaries of Brazil and the Argentine Republic which in due course will be submitted for the approval of the Congress of both countries. A fine division of the Argentine navy arrived in the Bay of Rio de Janeiro, where it stayed some days, having been sent by the order of its Government to take part in the celebrations commemorating our independence. The demonstrations which this visit evoked bore fresh testimony to the esteem in which the Brazilian Government and people hold the friendship of Argentina.
Our treaty of arbitration with Chile of May 18, 1899, having been lately mutually ratified in Santiago, I signed the decree of April 14 of the current year, bringing this act into force.
On May 20 of last year the arbitration court of Brazil and Bolivia created by article 2 of the treaty of November 17, 1903, commenced its deliberations in this city, whilst on January 15 last the Brazil-Perú court, established by the convention of July 12, 1904, also began its sittings. Both are under the presidency of the apostolic nuncio. The former of these had doubts as to the exact meaning of a clause of its internal regulations of June 3, 1905. This question was decided by the two Governments on January 30 of this year.
There have been installed in the (provisionally) neutral zones of Breu (Alto Juruá) and Catay (Alto Purús) the fixed police and fiscal commissions agreed upon the accord of July 12, 1904, between Brazil and Perú. The commissions appointed to report on the Alto Purus and the Alto Jurua, courageously overcoming great difficulties brought their explorations to a conclusion as rapidly as was possible, going not only to the sources of these two rivers and of their more remote tributaries, but also to the small streams which connect them with certain tributaries of the Ucayle. The chiefs of the commissions for the report on the Alto Purus have already delivered to their respective governments their report and their maps. The mixed commission which went to the Alto Juruá is finishing its clerical work at Manãos. When these documents have been perused and more exact data in respect to these reasons are to hand, the two Governments will be able to enter into negotiations with more probability of arriving at a satisfactory solution of the frontier questions at present pending.
Two protocols relative to the putting into effect of the frontier treaty between Brazil and Venezuela of May the 5th, 1859, were signed at Caracas by the plenipotentiaries of the two countries on the 9th of December last. By the first there was approved and recognized the line of demarcation made in 1888 by the mixed Brazil and Venezuelan commission from Pedra de Cucuhy, near the Rio Negro, up to Serra Cupy in an easterly direction. By the second it was stipulated that a mixed commission should verify the line of demarcation, made in 1882 to 1884 by a Brazilian commission without the concurrence of Venezuela, from Serra Cupy up to the point of Monte Roraima where the three frontiers of Brazil, Venezuela, and British Guiana’ meet, giving always the preference to the dividing line of the waters which go by the Amazon, Orinoco, and Essequibo, and carrying out the line of demarcation in accordance with the disposition contained in paragraphs 2 and 3 of article 2 in the aforementioned frontier treaty of 5th of May, 1859.
The frontier treaty which we concluded with Ecuador on the 6th of May, 1904, having been duly ratified by both powers, I promulgated it by decree of 18th of May, 1905.
I hope that we may shortly bring to a satisfactory conclusion the negotiations at present proceeding with the Dutch Government with regard to the frontier of Brazil and the colony of Surinam.
Negotiations have been reopened in Bogotá which had been broken off since 1870 for the adjustment of the frontier between Brazil and Colombia. The conciliatory and reasonable solution at which we have arrived in the interests of the two friendly countries will only be rendered impossible if, which I do not suppose, the Colombian Government maintains that our effective power, which has continued for nearly two centuries on the left bank of the Amazon and on the lower lea, or Putumayo, is of less value than that of the preliminary or provisional treaty of 1777, never completely executed and never followed by [Page 138] the definite treaty which it itself provided for, but always broken since the war of 1801.
I propose to begin without further delay the work of demarcation of the new frontiers between Brazil and Bolivia and the construction of the Madeira to Mamoré Railway, thereby faithfully fulfilling our obligations laid down in the treaty of 17th of November, 1903.
There are now awaiting approval by the two Governments interested on the maps presented by the Brazil-Argentina mixed commission, which marks out the limits of the common frontier by the Uruguay, Pepiry-Guassu, Santo Antonio and Iguassu, from the confluence of the Quarahim up to the Alto Parana-, as I announced to you in my last year’s message.
By decrees of 13th of July and 5th of October, 1905, there came into force in Brazil the international accord for the repression of the white slave trade to which we had given our adherence on the 18th of May, 1904, and the International Sanitary Convention which we concluded in this city of Rio de Janeiro on the 12th of June, 1904, with the Republics of Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay.
Another decree, dated 3d of February last, promulgated the agreement on trade and commercial marks between Brazil and the Argentine Republic signed on the 30th of October, 1901.
His Holiness Pope Pius N gave proof of his peculiar affection for the Brazilian people by elevating to the cardinalate in the consistory of 11th of December last the Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro, Don Joaquin Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti. It is the first time that so high a distinction has been conferred upon a Latin-American prelate.
The third scientific Latin-American congress held its sessions in this capital from the 6th to the 16th of August of last year.
The representatives of South American Republics in Washington, in accordance with instructions received from their respective Governments, at a meeting held on the 6th of December last, chose the city of Rio de Janeiro as the place of meeting for the Third International American Congress. The first—as you know—was held in Washington from 1889 to 1890, and the second in Mexico in 1901.
A special commission consisting of the Secretary of State of the United States of America, of the ambassadors of Brazil and Mexico, and of the ministers of the Argentine Republic, Chile, Costa Rica, and Cuba drew up the programme to be discussed, which was unanimously approved at the sessions of April 6 and 21.
The conference will open its sessions on July 21 and close them on the 1st of September, in accordance with the programme already approved by the Union of American Republics in Washington.
Mr. Elihu Root, Secretary of State of the United States of America, is expected to arrive in this capital on July 25, on a visit to Brazil, and he will be our guest for several days.
It is a great satisfaction to me to note that the relations of cordial friendship between Brazil and the United States of America are ever becoming stronger. In this regard I have done no more than follow the traditional policy established by the founders of our independence in the year 1822, which has been continued without interruption by all Brazilian Governments.
The second peace conference, to which we were invited, as we were to the first in 1899, was going to meet at The Hague on the 15th day of July next, in accordance with the proposal made to the various Governments by His Majesty the Emperor of Russia. Arrangements having already been made for the meeting in Rio de Janeiro during that same month of the Pan-American Congress, we, in conjunction with the Government of the United States of America, asked for a postponement of the meeting at The Hague to a date when the Pan-American Congress should have finished its deliberations, in order that some of the delegates might be able to take part in both conferences. This postponement was readily and without question accepted, by Russia and all the other European powers.
On the 30th of April last I notified our legation in Berne that Brazil would give her adherence to the convention of Geneva of August 22, 1864, known as the Red Cross, this adhesion being subject to your approval. Paraguay, Ecuador, and Colombia, the only South American countries in like case with ourselves, have informed us that they also are disposed to adhere to this convention from now onward.
[Page 139]On the initiative of His Majesty the King of Italy an International Institute of Agriculture has been founded in Rome, and Brazil, having been invited to take part in the preliminary discussions, will be duly represented. Finally, I authorized our diplomatic representative in Italy to sign, as plenipotentiary and with an ad referendum to the National Congress, the convention arranged between the powers who approve of the creation of the aforesaid institute.
Brazilian interests at the sugar conference have been defended by the minister of Brazil to Belgium and by a delegate appointed by the minister of finance.
Our legation in Mexico has been reestablished. The Dutch Government has created a legation in Rio de Janeiro, which was inaugurated on the 16th of December last. The reestablishment of our former legation at The Hague depends on your approval of a project which will be submitted to you.