723.2515/480: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Commission to Negotiate Peace
1911. Your 1874 April 30th. For the Secretary of State and Stabler.
In connection with the plan suggested in your 1874, I take the liberty of suggesting that it might at this time have the effect of [Page 158] postponing or preventing the adherence of Chile to the League Covenant. It might also have prejudicial effect on public opinion in the United States and on the Senate if it became known that the Department sought to apply League of Nations in advance of ratification by Senate, and Department would be in an especially embarrassing position if Chile should refuse on the ground that the Covenant had not been ratified either here or in Chile. My own impression is that Chile will not ratify Covenant until the same has been ratified in the United States.
Agustin Edwards, Chilean Minister to London, who is on his way back to his post, called at the Department yesterday in company with the Chilean Ambassador. We had been warned from Chile that he proposed to discuss the Peruvian question. As a matter of fact, they had already discussed the question with Fletcher. They stated to me that there was a plan under consideration in Chile and the Chilean Government would probably in the near future authorize the Chilean Ambassador here to propose through the Department as an intermediary a direct settlement with Peru. In general the plan contemplates dividing the two provinces and giving Tacna to Peru and Arica to Chile [Bolivia]. It is also proposed that all customs barriers between the two provinces would be wiped out and that Bolivia would be given control of the railroad, and that all customs barriers as regards Bolivia would also be wiped out.
Edwards pointed out, after I pressed him as to what their position really was, that his Government was afraid of arbitration for the political effect in Chile, and also pointed out that arbitration could not be carried out without the consent of the Chilean Congress. He suggested, however, that in case the proposed plan did not completely meet the approval of Peru, and there were points of difference which could not be settled through an intermediary, that the Chilean Government might accept some plan of investigation similar to that proposed in the Covenant of the League of Nations, even though Chile had not formally joined the League.
I pointed out to him that we could not pass in any way on the justice of the settlement they offered, or make any recommendations to Peru on the subject as his Government had carefully ignored the hint made last December that the United States might be useful in settling this dispute.
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