File No. 711.1215/410.
The Mexican Ambassador to the Acting Secretary of State.
Washington, March 9, 1912.
Excellency: With reference to the correspondence previously exchanged between the Department and this Embassy and especially to your excellency’s memorandum dated December 16, 1911, relative to the Chamizal case, and in compliance with special instructions from the Department of Foreign Relations of my country, I have the honor to inform your excellency that the Mexican Government adheres to the opinion that the Chamizal case was finally decided: because the Tribunal of Arbitration conformed to the procedure agreed upon by both Governments; because the President of the said Tribunal, the Honorable Eugene Lafleur, was chosen by the two countries, which took into account the high reputation for learning and probity of that jurist, of which he gave high evidence in the hearings of the case; because the two Governments agreed, with the completest formality that can be given to an international covenant, to abide by the award; because the opinion that one of the parties may form as to the said award being defective or ineffective does not confer upon it the right to quash it; and lastly because the admission of the opposite proposition would strike at the root of the high conquest achieved by the nations in looking to arbitration as the means of settling international disputes.
Notwithstanding the foregoing statement, the Mexican Government, desiring for its part no abatement of the cordiality of the relations that bind it to the Government of the United States, is disposed to listen to such proposals as that Government may see fit to make, and the Government of Mexico will give them the full consideration they deserve, on the understanding that they are not to deal with the question of the validity of the arbitral award nor the possibility of determining scientifically the site of the river bed in 1864.
I renew [etc.]