File No. 832.032/2.

[Untitled]

[The message of the President, Marechal Hermes Rodrigues da Fonseca, was read to the Congress May 3, 1911, and transmitted to the Secretary of State May 31 by the American minister, Mr. Dudley. The following is the only passage referring to the United States:]

[Translation.]

On May 17, 1910, at Quito, and at Lima on May 22, Brazil, the United States of America and the Argentine Republic proffered their good offices to the Governments of Peru and Ecuador to prevent an outbreak of hostilities, which seemed imminent, as a result of fighting on the frontier and serious popular demonstrations at Quito, Guayaquil, and Lima. The initiation of this policy was due entirely to the United States of America, while Brazil and Argentina gladly accepted the invitation extended to them by the American Government to take joint and friendly action in the interests of peace. The Government of Chile was requested to use its good offices with the Ecuador Government, which could not take direct action, in view of the fact that its diplomatic relations with Peru had been broken off. The three Governments by their intervention succeeded in bringing the questions at issue to a definite and satisfactory settlement.

On October 4 of last year there were signed in Rio de Janeiro, embodied in an act, five declaratory articles for the demarcation of the frontiers between the United States of Brazil and the Republic of Argentina. This demarcation was effected on November 3, 1900, and October 6, 1904, by the Brazil-Argentine mixed commission as a complement to the arbitration decision of Washington of February 5, 1895, and of the boundary treaty concluded in Rio de Janeiro on October 6, 1898.

On the same day, October 4, 1910, a convention was signed in Buenos Aires as a complement to the said boundary treaty of 1898. It fixes the dividing line on the section of the River Uruguay which lies between the southwest point of the island known as Brasileira or Quarahim, and the mouth of the River Quarahim.

Ratifications should also be exchanged of the conventions for the interchange of postal orders which we made with France on June 3, 1909, with the United States of America on March 26, with Germany on April 20, and with Italy on December 19, 1910. As far as we are concerned these conventions have already been approved by legislative decrees Nos. 2.359 A, 2.360, 2.361, and 2.362 of December 31, 1910.