File No. 2491/87.
The Minister of Panama to the Secretary of State.
Washington, October 23, 1909.
Excellency: In reply to your excellency’s polite note of the 20th instant, relative to the controversy over the boundary line between the Republics of Panama and Costa Rica, I have the honor, on behalf of my Government, to offer, through you excellency’s worthy medium, the expression of the Panaman Government’s thanks to the Government of the United States for the fresh evidence of friendship it has extended to the Government of Panama in consenting to let the learned and eminent Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States act as arbitrator in the boundary dispute pending between the two Republics.
It affords my Government pleasure to find this very long-standing question in so promising a condition for final settlement, and it appreciates and values beyond expression the good offices of your excellency’s Government, confident as ever that it may rely on its wise counsel in case of an unlikely disagreement with the Government of Costa Rica respecting the points to be referred to the learned arbitrator.
As the legation’s duties in the negotiations that have been carried on between the Governments of Panama and Costa Rica have been confined to transmitting communications, I am without instructions empowering me to conduct direct negotiations with Mr. Luis Anderson, as stated in my telegram of the 21st instant to your excellency; but I have taken the requisite steps to apprise my Government of all that has taken place in the matter and I expect soon to receive instructions on this point.
I note in your excellency’s communication to which I have the honor to refer that your excellency speaks ir a general way of the boundary lines, and in order to remove all doubt as to what my Government proposes to refer to arbitration, I have the honor to advert to the closing paragraph of Secretary Lewis’s memorandum, which I respectfully submitted to your excellency’s consideration, together with my note No. 17 of July 30 last, and which runs as follows:
Panama proposes to ask of Costa Rica compliance with the Loubet award, and as the only point upon which disagreement may arise concerning the demarkation of the line therein indicated is that portion of the line which embraces the valley of the Tarire River, this Government is disposed to refer to the honorable Chief Justice of the [Page 798] Supreme Court of the United States the final decision as to which of the two boundary-lines between Panama and Costa Rica is the correct one, in the event of the Loubet award having overstepped the extreme line of Colombia; whether that which was fixed by Colombia with the award before her, and which embraces the valleys of the tributaries of the Sixaola, above the Yorquin, or whether the boundary is a line which, starting from Cape Mona on the Atlantic Ocean, follows the spur of the range beginning at the said cape, until it meets the line which, according to the arbitration conventions constitute the extreme claim of Colombia, which then follows that extreme line until it cuts the award line on the range which divides the waters between the Atlantic and Pacific, then following the said range as far as the ninth degree of latitude, approximately, provided that Costa Rica enter into a formal engagement with the United States that that award, whatever it may be, shall be accepted by her as final.
I have the honor to join in my Government’s expression of thanks for your excellency’s considerate note of the 20th instant, and take pleasure in subscribing myself, etc.,