File No. 723.2515/270.
The American Minister to Peru to the Secretary of State.
Lima, June 1, 1912.
Sir: I have the honor to report that in one of the interviews with the President of Peru upon the subject of the discovery of nitrate about one hundred miles north of the Chilean frontier, he stated that he had been informed, after the Chilean press had published vague rumors to that effect, that a commission of four of the representative citizens of Chile were coming to Lima for the ostensible purpose of investigation and report upon Peruvian methods of agriculture, mining, irrigation, etc., but that in fact the purpose was to open negotiations for some settlement of the question of Tacna and Arica.
Upon discussing with Mr. Paxton Hibben, late American Chargé d’Affaires in Chile, the questions between that country and Peru, I found that, coupled with a comprehensive grasp of the situation and a knowledge of Latin-American peoples, he had the added information of the exact sentiment of the Chilean President, Minister of Foreign Affairs and other public men on the one hand and of the Chilean public on the other. I asked that he accompany me to see the President of Peru in the possible hope of approximating, at least, some understanding between the two Republics, which might ripen through diplomatic intervention into a solution of the long-pending question. In view of the information looking to that end of which Mr. Hibben was possessed, we accordingly spent some time with the President on yesterday afternoon, and I beg to report the following:
Repeating his conversation with me, Mr. Hibben stated to the President that the visit of the four public men of Chile, which had been reported by him to the Department, had been decided upon and that their real purpose was a consideration of the Tacna and Arica question; but that on account of the sentiment of the people of Chile in opposition to any settlement other reasons had been assigned for their visit. He said that the President of Chile, having yet four years more of his term to serve, had expressed himself as most desirous of an amicable settlement of the Tacna and Arica question during his incumbency and before the completion of the Panama Canal. He stated that he had urged upon the Chilean officials that the continuance of the unsettled conditions from which war might result at any time had such an effect upon Chile’s standing with the financial world as to tend to retard its development; and, regardless of the merits of the proposition, with which the world at large had little or no concern, a settlement should be reached even though both countries had to sacrifice what each claimed as rights. He said that the President of Chile was advanced in years, and had no ambition [Page 1223] for a political future; and that the President had stated to him that any solution short of a continued occupation and ownership of Tacna and Arica meant the political doom of any man or men advocating or consummating same; but that he personally cared nothing for that. He quoted other public men of Chile as being in accord with this sentiment, but excepted as radically opposed thereto the Chilean Minister to Ecuador, Mr. Victor Eastman. He quoted the latter as saying that within two years he might be in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and that he personally would be in favor of placing beyond all question the ownership of Tacna and Arica by proclaiming it, once and for all, as Chilean property, following a plebiscite to be held along the lines of Chile’s proposals. Mr. Hibben said that the real proposition that the four Chilean emissaries would submit was that the provinces in question should be returned to Peru, and be simultaneously reconveyed at an agreed purchase price to Chile. He named the approximate sum of thirty million dollars, as heretofore mentioned, saying that amount would, no doubt, be increased if demanded. Various phases of the proposition were discussed by the President of Peru, but, in conclusion he said that if Chile was not willing to arbitrate, he did not believe that the Peruvian Government could or should transfer to Chile the provinces of Tacna and Arica, so long as they were populated by Peruvian citizens. He indicated that such a course would be an abandonment of the obligation that the Republic owed to its citizens, which he did not think that Peru would consent to. He expressed the belief that the natural resources of his country under the development that must come would place Peru upon a footing of equality, if not of marked superiority, and upon a plane from which she would be in a position to dictate rather than to submit to terms. Mr. Hibben, upon the other hand, said that he did not believe that any Chilean would entertain for a moment any proposition of settlement which involved the surrender of one foot of the territory in question.
The President then said that Peru was, of course, desirous of settling all of her international questions, and whether that desire would be sufficiently potent to acquiesce in a division of the territory—Arica to Chile and Tacna to Peru—he could not now state.
Mr. Hibben said that he felt positive that Chile would not agree to any surrender of territory.
I will add that during the conversation some suggestion was made that Chile’s change of front may have been prompted by a desire for the settlement proposed while her land and naval forces placed her upon the vantage ground and in a position to more or less dictate the terms of any agreement that might be reached. It was also stated that Chile assigned as a reason for not surrendering the territory that Peru could not pay anything for it; to which the President replied that in that they were wholly mistaken, as Peru could and would make it a cash transaction at any time; and that, moreover, in any settlement made, Peru would be willing to pay for any improvements that Chile had made upon territory to be owned by the former.
With regard to the question of the plebiscite, Mr. Hibben stated that the Chileans steadily rejected all suggestion of an impartial umpire as between a Peruvian and Chilean election officer to come [Page 1224] from any European nation, whose disinterestedness in the affairs of either country would insure impartial action.
I have [etc.]