723.2515/1114
The Peruvian Ambassador ( Pezet ) to the Secretary of State
Mr. Secretary of State: In the conference which, through the friendly initiative of President Harding, was opened in this capital on the 12th of May, 1922, the Ministers Plenipotentiary of Peru and Chile, on July 20 of that same year, signed the protocol of arbitration and the additional act, the text of which I was pleased to make known in due time to Your Excellency, and according to which it was agreed that the difficulties springing from the nonexecuted stipulations of Article III of the Peruvian-Chilean Peace Treaty of October 20, 1883, would be referred to the arbitral decision of the President of the United States of America in the form specified by the said protocol and the additional act. The execution of both agreements has been awaiting for their perfecting, which has just taken place through the exchange of ratifications that took place at this capital on the 15th instant, after being given the proper legislative approval in Peru and Chile. The time, therefore, has come to ask the President of the United States of America, as I have hereby the honor to do in the name of and under special instructions from my Government, through Your Excellency’s high medium, that he deign to accept the high office of arbitrator, with which he has been entrusted for the final and unappealable solution of the difficulties above mentioned.
The generous interest shown on many occasions by the American Government in the peaceful settlement of the questions which for forty years have been a constant and dangerous cause of disturbance in the relations between Peru and Chile, and the well-deserved confidence we have in the wise and justice-loving mind of the Chief Magistrate of this Great Republic, warrant the hope that he will be pleased to accept the important office with which he has been vested, thus doing another invaluable service to the cause of peace and tranquility of America, for which service my Government wishes to express its thanks in advance.
I avail myself [etc.]