Office of the Historian

File No. 722.2315/597.

The American Minister to Peru to the Secretary of State.

No. 225.
American Legation,
Lima, July 23, 1918.

Sir: I have the honor to report that upon the receipt of the Department’s cablegram of July 11, concerning the Ecuadorian boundary dispute, a paraphrase thereof was submitted to the President and to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Shortly thereafter the latter asked that I call at his office; and, after expressing his Government’s appreciation of the Department’s attitude, he read the enclosed memorandum, commenting as he proceeded. Copies have also been given to the Brazilian Minister and Argentine Charge. I asked whether the rescue soldiers had actually been withdrawn from the Morona, as the memorandum implied. The Minister said that he could not state positively that they had. I replied that the President had said that lie refused to withdraw them at the behest of Ecuador because admitting the right to demand it, but that he would do so if Ecuador would agree to arbitrate the boundary dispute. My purpose was to ascertain whether Peru would be unyielding [Page 1156] in this small matter, a racial trait; but the Minister was not disposed to depart from the last known expression of the President. The latter, as reported, has denied himself to visitors for many days in the preparation of his message to Congress, and I have no news of a change in the Peruvian attitude as reported in recent cablegrams. As the enclosed memorandum adds nothing thereto, I have not had it translated.

I have [etc.]

H. Clay Howard.
[Inclosure—Translation.]

memorandum.

The Government of Ecuador having protested to the Mediating Powers against the maintenance of a Peruvian detachment sent to the Morona River region for the purpose of rescuing the persons captured by the savages following the massacres committed by the latter, and said Powers having manifested a desire to secure a satisfactory solution of this incident, the Peruvian Foreign Office hereby declares:

1.
That the Peruvian Government duly and fully complied with the suggestions of the mediators with respect to a reduction of its military forces to a peace footing.
2.
That the detachments which the Loreto Prefecture has kept in the river region have been for the sole purpose of maintaining internal order and affording security to persons and property.
3.
That on the Morona River internal quiet was threatened by the attempt at colonization carried out by an European enterprise to which the Ecuadorian Government granted a concession of lands owned by Peru and occupied by Peruvian inhabitants.
4.
That the extermination by savages of a detachment of settlers on the shores of the Morona not only justifies the procedure of the Loreto Prefecture but also clearly demonstrates the fact that the forces detached there were still insufficient in number (about thirty men) to accomplish the purpose of maintaining internal order as announced above.
5.
That, always deferring to the wishes of the Mediating Powers and desiring to avoid any cause of obstruction of the final settlement of the boundary dispute with Ecuador, the Peruvian is ordering the Loreto Prefecture to keep on the Morona River only mere police officers subject to the civil authorities, charged with guarding civilized inhabitants of that region from fresh attacks by the savage tribes, preventing at the same time by their presence a repetition there of events similar to those that occurred on the Putumayo.
6.
That it is the most earnest hope of the Peruvian Government that the Mediating Powers may accomplish their generous purposes by inducing the Government of Ecuador to accept the recommendation, already unconditionally approved by Peru, that the pending boundary controversy be left to the decision of the Tribunal of The Hague.

Foreign Office,
Lima, July 15, 1913.