723.2515/2145: Telegram
The Ambassador in Chile (Collier) to the Secretary of State
[Received 2:25 p.m.]
76. Your 50, April 15, 7 p.m. Wednesday night I addressed a note to the Foreign Office as to injustice of accusations and insinuations [Page 386] in Mercurio’s editorial of April 14th, referred to in my telegram No. 71, especially in view of the fact that the plan that was criticised was Edwards’, whose activity in promoting it I set forth in detail. I made no demand but intimated that I felt the Government should inform the papers. I received a reply last night, and this morning the following statement by the Foreign Office appeared in the Mercurio and all other papers:
“The Ambassador of the United States has made representations to the Minister for Foreign Affairs as to the injustice of the attack directed against his Government by a newspaper of Santiago with respect to the possibility that the Secretary of State of the United States might, in the exercise of good offices, favor the neutralization of the territory of Tacna-Arica; and he has stated that said formula was initiated by the Chilean members of the Plebiscitary Commission who had suggested it with insistency before General Pershing returned to the United States.
The Ambassador requests that they inform the press as to this fact with the object of avoiding judgments adverse to the Government of the United States based upon conditions in whose origin neither that Government nor its agents have had any participation.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs has answered stating that he deplores the editorial referred to and the injustice of the attack in it against the Government of the United States.
It adds that the Government of Chile had knowledge of the facts set forth by the Ambassador of the United States with regard to the origin of this formula of neutralization of the territory of Tacna-Arica and that it has taken the necessary steps to avoid that suggestions strictly personal, contrary to or absolutely opposed to the ideas of government, however well inspired they may have been, can create obstacles in the prosecution of the plebiscite or of the pending friendly negotiations.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs terminates by availing himself of the occasion to make note of the noble and disinterested spirit with which the Government of the United States endeavor to secure a solution of the differences between Chile and Peru.”
End of the statement of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, literally and textually accurately translated.
Give to the press immediately.
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