File No. 723.2515/129.
The Secretary of State to the American Chargé d’Affaires at Lima 1
Washington, April 2, 1910.
Sir: For your information I quote a memorandum of a conversation between the Assistant Secretary of State and Mr. Villegas, Argentine Chargé d’Affaires at Washington, March 30, 1910:
Mr. Villegas called for a response to the question involved in a paraphrase of a telegraphic instruction which he received from his Government on March 29, which he left at the Department on the day of the receipt of the instruction.
[Page 1188]This question referred to a reported project of Brazil for mediation by the United States, Brazil and Argentina to refer the Tacna-Arica controversy to The Hague or to Brazil.
The Assistant Secretary of State told the Argentine Chargé d’Affaires that the Department had received a similar inquiry from Minister Sherrill, and that the Argentine Minister for Foreign Affairs seemed to have inaccurate information, in that the Department had heard nothing of any proposal to refer the Tacna-Arica question for decision by Brazil or by The Hague. The Assistant Secretary intimated that the Minister for Foreign Affairs had given Mr. Sherrill the impression that he thought the name of the Argentine Republic had been used without authorization in an improper manner. The Chargé d’Affaires evidently had this idea.
The Assistant Secretary of State said that what the Department had heard was through informal conversation with the Ambassador at Petropolis, who understood that Baron Rio Branco, at the instance of Peru, was sounding Chile as to whether a joint effort by the Argentine Republic, Brazil and the United States to settle the question between Chile and Peru would stand any chance of acceptance. The Assistant Secretary pointed out that the question was altogether hypothetical; that if it became a practical question the Department understood Argentina, Brazil and the United States would take part jointly and equally. He pointed out that of course the question could not become a practical one without prior acquiescence by Argentina. The Assistant Secretary intimated that in sounding out the theory, Brazil had to begin somewhere, and this doubtless accounted for the fact that Argentina had not been sounded already. He also intimated that it would seem to be for Brazil rather than for the United States to explain the idea.
The Assistant Secretary of State said that the Department had replied to Brazil with an assurance of this Government’s sharing as a matter of course the universal hope that the very troublesome Tacna-Arica question should be settled; adding that should such a theory commend itself to Chile, Peru, Argentina and Brazil and the question thus become practical instead of hypothetical, this Government would be ready, as usual, to respond to the request to join in doing what it could to improve the situation. The Assistant Secretary said that the Department was sitting quietly and doing nothing under present circumstances.
The Assistant Secretary of State told the Argentine Chargé d’Affaires that the Department would telegraph Minister Sherrill in this sense, and added that he was at liberty confidentially to telegraph his Government. The Assistant Secretary added that, for the obvious reason that any proposal would be less likely to be accepted by Chile if it were known that Peru had instigated it, Baron Rio Branco desired the fact that he had evolved this theory at the instance of Peru treated as especially confidential at this time.
I am [etc.]
- The same to the Embassy at Petropolis, the Legation at Buenos Aires, and the Legation at Santiago de Chile.↩