723.2515/2414: Telegram
The Ambassador in Chile (Collier) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 8—7:08 a.m.]
200. Upon receipt of your 105 I went at 7 o’clock this evening to the Foreign Office. The Under Secretary was with the President in the meeting of notables to consider Chile’s decision. The session is [Page 471] likely to last several hours. I then went to house of Mathieu who, despite his statement to me the other day that he had resigned, attended the Cabinet meeting today and was in the Ministry most of the day. Upon my arrival at his house I was told he had gone to bed exhausted and could not see me.
I saw the editor in chief of Diario Ilustrado and Carlos Aldunate Solar24 and told them of your feeling that Lassiter’s resolution could not be postponed beyond Wednesday if the Government did not instruct Edwards to move a postponement. They feel the propriety of this but fear the Government’s weakness. It has pledged itself to the plebiscite so many times that it hardly dares to change front entirely all at once, notwithstanding that consistency and even evident sincerity require it. If Chile makes a proposition tomorrow I will at once see the President directly, [beginning paraphrase] and also influential friends of his, and shall argue that courtesy requires that if they ask the mediator to support a proposition, they should give him reasonable length of time to obtain its acceptance by the other party. …
If Government of Chile announces tomorrow that it has made a proposition, quite a sensation will be created. It may not feel able to declare publicly that it has consented to postponement at Arica, but if it gets through tomorrow satisfactorily, as I think it will, it will be able to make public declaration in day or so. I am making every possible effort to get them to make postponement now. We ought not to allow ourselves to be stampeded at Arica as long as there is chance here. Majority of those who have worked for good offices are still hopeful. I hope most earnestly that Lassiter, even against Edwards’ wish, will vote to postpone for a week, for you will need that much time to present to Peruvian Government any proposition Chile may make. There has been great change here, especially in Congress, since Alessandri’s departure. [End paraphrase.]
- Former president of Chilean Senate and member of the Chilean delegation to the conference at Washington, 1922, between Chile and Peru; see Foreign Relations, 1922, vol. i, pp. 447 ff.↩