File No. 817.812/87.
The Chargé d’Affaires of Salvador to the Secretary of State.
Washington, July 21, 1914.
Mr. Secretary: I have had the honor to receive your excellency’s note dated the 16th instant in which, in acknowledging receipt, of mine of the 8th of the same month, your excellency tells me that my Government has been misinformed in regard to the treaty with Nicaragua; that the negotiations have not been concluded and that no treaty whatever has been referred to the Senate for its ratification; that the Department of State is in confidential consultation with the Committee on Foreign Relations over a tentative draft the terms of which have not been made public; and that if the subject matter in which my Government has evinced interest should come to be taken into practical consideration, your excellency will be pleased to examine the protest that I submitted.
I have to say to your excellency with all due respect that the context of my protest aforesaid shows that it refers to a draft treaty with Nicaragua, but availing myself of your excellency offer to examine my protest in the event of the subject becoming one of practical consideration, I let it stand as also presented for and pending that contingency.
Pursuant to the instruction I have received and referred to heretofore, I have to say that my Government’s action, aiming to safeguard the integrity of Salvador’s autonomy which would be impaired if a protectorate were eventually established over Nicaragua, is perfectly legitimate. The special ties and relations which have always [Page 963] existed among the Central American States are their whole history and constitute the Central American Public Law embodied in the Political Constitution of each State as an essential part of its existence.
Those ties and that law are entitled to full consideration and respect; they form the common patrimony of each and every State and the separate action of any one of them calculated to destroy them is neither just nor constitutional.
I beg your excellency to consider this communication as part of my protest above referred to.
I have great pleasure in renewing [etc.]