723.2515/2369: Telegram
The Ambassador in Chile (Collier) to the Secretary of State
[Received 11 p.m.]
179. Unfortunately your 944 arrived too late for me to present the memorandum of 935 to the Chilean Government until after the Cabinet meeting. I had an hour’s conversation with the Minister for Foreign Affairs at his house last night, where he is quite sick with the grippe and where the Cabinet meeting was held. He was reluctant to tell me much about it but said that the decision was that [Page 451] no corridor could be given which would include any part of railway. …
[Paraphrase.] Mathieu suggested that Chile might offer a corridor north of the railway widening out at the sea so as to include the northern part of the city of Arica, but with understanding that Bolivia would continue to use existing Arica-La Paz railway. I pointed out to him that this was no genuine offer and that it was altogether inconsistent with your memorandum, which I read to him and then gave him. Often I feel that Mathieu has as little desire to settle the Bolivian question in the present proceedings as his colleagues have had, yet he told me that he and Cruchaga and the Government generally now believe that resolution of the Arbitrator declaring the plebiscite impossible because of fraud to be the alternative to good offices. The Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, to whom I also read the memorandum, says that chief obstacle is that populace still thinks that plebiscite is going to be won. … [End paraphrase.]
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