File No. 763.72119/468
The Mexican Consul General at San Francisco in Charge of Mexican Interests ( De Negri) to the Secretary of State
Mr. Secretary: I have the honor to transcribe to your excellency the following note, which the Secretary of Foreign Relations of my country has been pleased to write to me: [Page 45]
Querétaro, February 11, 1917.
Señor Ramón P. De Negri, Washington, D. C.: Please transcribe to the most excellent the Minister of Foreign Relations of that country the following note:
By direction of Citizen Venustiano Carranza, First Chief of the Constitutionalist Army, in charge of the executive power of the Mexican nation, I have the honor of addressing to your excellency the following note, which the above-named high mandatory has seen fit to send to the neutral countries:
It is more than two years since the most gigantic armed conflict recorded in history broke out in the old continent, sowing death, desolation, and destitution in the belligerent nations. The tragic contest has deeply wounded the sentiments of humanity of all the peoples that are not engaged in the struggle, and their standing unmoved before so great a disaster would be contrary to both justice and humaneness. A deep-seated sentiment of human solidarity then constrains the Mexican Government to tender its modest cooperation in endeavoring to bring the strife to an end. On the other hand, the conflagration in Europe has reached such proportions that the situation of the countries which remained neutral has grown more and more trying, bringing them, as it has, to the verge of being involved in that war; and several nations which, at the outset, took no part in the conflict, have found themselves irresistibly drawn into it.
Those countries which at present are still preserving their neutrality in the world and truly desire to keep out of the conflict must combine their efforts toward bringing about the earliest possible termination of the European war, or at least so circumscribing it as to remove the possibility of further complications and thus bring into sight an early ending.
The present European conflict affects the whole world, like a great conflagration, a severe plague, which ought to have been isolated and confined some time ago so as to shorten its life and prevent its spreading. Far from doing this, the trade of all the neutral countries in the world, and that of America in particular, bears a heavy responsibility before history, because all the neutral nations—some more, some less—have lent their quota of money, provisions, ammunition, or fuel, and in this way have kept up and prolonged the great conflagration.
Reasons of high human morality and of national self-conservation place the neutral peoples under the obligation of desisting from that course and of refusing to lend any longer that quota which made it possible to carry on the war for two years and more.
To that end the Government of Mexico, within the bounds of the strictest respect due to the sovereignty of the warring countries, inspired by the highest humanitarian sentiments, and also actuated by the sentiment of self-conservation and defense, takes the liberty of proposing to your excellency’s Government, as it is proposing to all the other neutral governments, that the groups of contending powers be invited, in common accord and on the basis of absolutely perfect equality on either side, to bring this war to an end either by their own effort or by availing themselves of the good offices of friendly mediation of all the countries which Would jointly extend [Page 46] that invitation. If within a reasonable term peace could not be restored by this means, the neutral countries would then take the necessary measures to reduce the conflagration to its narrowest limit, by refusing any kind of implements to the belligerents and suspending commercial relations with the warring nations until the said conflagration shall have been smothered.
The Mexican Government is not unconscious of its somewhat: departing from the principles of international law which have heretofore regulated the relations between neutrals and belligerents when it offers its propositions; but it must be admitted that the present war is a conflict without a precedent in the history of mankind that demands supreme efforts and novel remedies that are not to be found among the narrow and somewhat selfish rules of international law as accepted until now. Mexico believes that, confronted by a catastrophe of such large proportions the like of which never was seen, by a war in which political, social, military, and economic factors that could never be foreseen have been brought into play, it can not go astray in proposing that the remedies to be applied to the conflict be also new, extraordinary, and commensurate with the circumstances.
The Government of Mexico understands that no neutral nation, no matter how mighty, could singly take a step of this character, and that the measure can only be brought to a successful issue through the cooperation of the neutral governments wielding the greatest international influence with the belligerent nations.
It is specially incumbent on the United States, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile in America; Spain, Sweden, and Norway in Europe, as being more influential and freer to arrive at a decision toward the belligerents, to father an initiative which is none the less worthy of thorough study and earnest consideration for its coming from a nation which is supposed to be weakened at present and therefore incapable of any effective international effort.
The Government of Mexico cherishes the hope that if this idea is accepted and put into practice it may serve as a precedent and basis for a new shaping or international law that would give neutrals the opportunity to assist in preventing and mending future international wars while most strictly [respecting] the sovereignty of the belligerents.
Countries thereafter finding themselves on the brink of war, would earnestly ponder before launching into a conflict in which they would be entirely thrown on their own resources, and so would exhaust every means in which to avoid it or shorten its duration if it proved unavoidable.
I avail myself [etc.]. Gen. Candido Aguilar, Minister of Foreign Relations of Mexico.
I have the honor to transcribe the foregoing to your excellency, having thus carried out my Government’s instructions.
I take [etc.]