File No. 817.00/1546.
The Acting Secretary of State to the American Minister.
Washington, April 21, 1911.
Sir: The Department acknowledges the receipt of your dispatch No. 13 of March 4 last reporting that you had two very important private conferences with President Estrada, in which he had outlined specifically the policy he desires to pursue in Nicaragua, stating that as the matter was in your opinion of such vital importance you had decided to request Mr. Ernest H. Wands, the financial adviser of the Nicaraguan Government, who was about to leave for Washington, to lay this matter before the Department in person. Mr. Wands has now submitted to the Department an outline of President Estrada’s ideas and wishes.
You will avail yourself of an early opportunity to inform President Estrada confidentially that this Department greatly appreciates the renewed evidence of the cordial and friendly relations existing between the two Governments, which is afforded by this communication of his wishes as presented by Mr. Wands.
As President Estrada is already fully aware, it is the sincere wish of this Government to do all that it properly can to assist the people of Nicaragua in securing and maintaining an efficient, conciliatory, stable, and democratic government, since thus only can the peace and prosperity of the people of Nicaragua be fully attained. The manner [Page 659] in which this Government can be of assistance to the people of Nicaragua in securing these ends must inevitably to a great extent depend upon future circumstances which it is not possible to anticipate, but this Government believes that the surest course to secure the future peace and prosperity of Nicaragua lies in the strict fulfillment of the program laid down in the note dated November 5, 1910,1 addressed to Mr. Dawson, the special agent to Nicaragua, by the Nicaraguan minister for foreign affairs, and of the agreements dated October 27, 1910,1 signed by President Estrada and other political leaders, of which copies were handed to Mr. Dawson.
The Government of the United States has been gratified to learn that President Estrada’s Government has been proceeding along the lines indicated by this program, and confidently expects that the financial rehabilitation of Nicaragua through the loan which it is hoped will soon be consummated, and the settlement by the mixed commission, which is about to begin its labors, of the numerous serious questions arising from pending claims, will have far-reaching effects in securing the removal of strife and dissension and in assuring peace, stability, and prosperity in Nicaragua.
Regarding President Estrada’s wish to be relieved of the obligation of maintaining a representative at the Central American court, it is the constant desire of this Government to see the Washington conventions, by one of which this court was created, faithfully executed in letter and in spirit in the belief that in the conscientious observance of those conventions lies the stability and cordial relationship between the five States which the Government of the United States so earnestly desires to see maintained and which in bringing about the conference which framed the Washington conventions it exerted friendly influence to establish.
I am, etc.,