721.2315/102
The Permian Ambassador (Velarde) to the Secretary of State
Excellency: I have received the note which Your Excellency’s honorable predecessor was pleased to send me on the 4th of this month with authenticated copies in Spanish, English and Portuguese of the procès-verbal, signed in the Department of State by the above mentioned predecessor of Your Excellency, by the Minister of Colombia, the Chargé d’Affaires of Brazil and the undersigned; and it behooves me to express thanks for that paper as I now have the pleasure to do.
In the above mentioned note, Mr. Hughes says that with reference to his third suggestion in the sense that Brazil and Colombia should sign a convention under which the two countries would recognize [Page 464] the Apaporis-Tabatinga line and Brazil agree to establish forever in favor of Colombia free navigation of the Amazon and other common rivers, he regards it as understood that the signing of that convention would follow the ratification by Colombia and Peru of the boundary treaty signed by the two countries on March 24, 1922.
The Honorable Mr. Hughes adds that the Minister of Colombia renewed to him the declaration he had made in the course of the conference held on the same day of the signing of the procès-verbal in the sense that his Government would conclude with Brazil the convention above mentioned immediately upon the ratification by Peru, of the Peruvian-Colombian boundary treaty.
I greatly regret my inability to concur with the understanding of the Honorable Mr. Hughes or with the change which appears in the declarations of the Minister of Colombia, as both points were subjects for my remarks in the course of the negotiation, and the precise acceptance of those and other remarks made by me having been made a previous condition for the signing of the procès-verbal on the part of Peru.
In the draft of the procès-verbal which was presented to me by Mr. White, Chief of the Latin-American Division in charge of the negotiations in behalf of the Department of State, there was seen indeed at the beginning of the third suggestion of the Honorable Mr. Hughes this sentence: “The signing immediately after ratification of the said convention, etc.”, but that sentence was noticed by me and deleted by Mr. White and this third suggestion was finally worded in the original language as follows: “The signing between Brazil and Colombia of a convention etc.” This, therefore, was a point that had been disposed of and the procès-verbal stood worded and signed thus.
Neither can I agree for identically the same reasons to the change in the terms of the procès-verbal, referring to the declarations of the Minister of Colombia, which the Honorable Mr. Hughes sends me restoring, without change, the form in which they appeared in the original draft. In that draft it was said in that part to which I am referring, that “if the Treaty between Colombia and Peru of March 24, 1922, were ratified by the Government of Peru, the Government of Colombia etc.”
On account of my remarks and on account of their being accepted by Mr. White who was surely authorized thereto by the Minister of Colombia, since it is so recorded in the procès-verbal, as signed, the above copied sentence was changed as follows: “If the Treaty between Colombia and Peru of March 24, 1922, were ratified by both Governments, the Government of Colombia, etc.”
It is with genuine regret that I find myself constrained to offer the foregoing remarks.
[Page 465]I take note that a communication identical with that sent to me has been received by the Minister of Colombia and the Chargé d’Affaires of Brazil.
I have [etc.]