711.12151A/171
The Secretary of State to the Mexican Ambassador (Téllez)
Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of Your Excellency’s note of October 12, 1929, in which you request that the American Commissioner on the International Boundary Commission, United States and Mexico, proceed with the study and settlement of pending banco cases in the El Paso and Juarez valleys. I also have received your note No. 5532, of the eleventh instant,56 with reference to this same matter.
In reply I have the honor to refer to your call at the Department on the fifteenth instant when, during the course of a conversation with Mr. Cotton, you stated that your Government would be willing to proceed with the elimination of bancos and river rectification simultaneously. You will recall that Mr. Cotton57 then stated that the [Page 479] American Commissioner on the International Boundary Commission would be promptly requested to proceed on that basis.
I now take pleasure in informing Your Excellency that the American Commissioner is today being requested to proceed with the Mexican Commissioner in carrying on simultaneously the preliminary engineering and other work involved in the proposed elimination of bancos in the El Paso and Juarez Valleys and the preparation of a joint report and a suggested draft agreement or convention covering the subject of river rectification and boundary stabilization between El Paso and the Box Canyon below Fort Quitman.
Accordingly, I have the honor to request that you be good enough to take such steps as you may deem necessary to the end that corresponding directions be issued to the Mexican Commissioner.
Accept [etc.]