724.3415/2050: Telegram
The Minister in Bolivia (Feely) to the Secretary of State
[Received 10:55 a.m.]
52. The reply of the Bolivian Government to neutrals’ telegram of August 9th was sent last night. The Department’s telegram No. 25, August 11, 2 p.m.52 was received August 11, 7 p.m., but owing to many garbles has not yet been completely deciphered.
However I discussed the matter with the Minister of Foreign Affairs last evening and found him greatly disturbed at the outlook, in view of Bolivia’s inability to accept the four points in their entirety, principally because of its fear of public opinion and the danger of internal disturbances if the arbitral decision should not be made within the period stipulated.
As the Minister in recent conversations has stressed the desirability of avoiding prolonged negotiations, could not the question of possessions be obviated by an immediate concrete proposal for arbitration, or by the proposal by the neutrals of an arbitrary line such for example as the Ichazo-Benítez line53 as definitive solution?
While suspension of hostilities exists and large purchases of supplies have been suspended, the concentration of troops continues, and a hostile press is creating a current of opinion distinctly unfavorable to the mediation of American nations, and even to a peaceful settlement.
- Not printed.↩
- Benítez-Ichazo Treaty, signed at Asunción, November 23, 1894; postponed indefinitely by Paraguayan Congress, May 19, 1896. See Republica del Paraguay, Subsecretario de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto, Colección de Tratados Históricos y Vigentes (Imprenta Nacional, Asunción, 1934), vol. i, pp. 256–257.↩