710.G/147
The Salvadoran de facto Minister for Foreign Affairs ( Araujo ) to the Secretary of State 9
L. D. No. 641
[Received June 5.]
Mr. Minister: Urged by the necessity, which is daily becoming greater in the New World, of finding for the international situation [Page 6] a common solution guaranteed by the resolution of a group of nations linked together by common historical ties, I take the liberty of suggesting to Your Excellency the advisability of adopting a basis of conduct that may determine our common attitude, at least with regard to the salient points of the program that will be developed at the Seventh Panamerican Conference, which is to be held in Montevideo, Uruguay.
There is no doubt that the sentiment of the Ibero-American peoples, aside from regional idiosyncracies, has expressed itself in mutually harmonious ways, with regard to definite political ideals, and we may be sure that there is already a doctrine, supported by the will of the same peoples, which awaits only its sanction in the form of a juridical system.
Aside from purely political plans in which there are valuable precedents for establishing a ruling orientation of sovereignty, by generous principles derived from realities of American life, there might be a discussion on the establishment of a purely economic policy directed toward the abolition of the prejudices that formerly made national selfishness the only working program.
I would leave in an incomplete form the suggestion which I respectfully present to Your Excellency, if I did not specify, as an urgent necessity, that of strengthening and converting into a present objective the Bolivarian tendencies directed toward the creation of an American League of Nations, within the modalities of modern International Law, taking into account the urgent need of an institutional readjustment, which would promise and guarantee a firm fraternity.
In this respect, and taking as a point of departure our traditional spirit of harmony, I wish to bring to the attention of Your Excellency the initiative taken by the Salvadorian Congress of 1912, in authorizing the Supreme Executive Power of my country to propose to the chancelleries of the Latin American countries, the establishment of a Court of Arbitration, to render decisions on international controversies of any kind arising between the signatory countries. This inter-American juridical organ might be the basis of a policy of effective rapprochement and concentration.
I believe that the exchange of ideas which I respectfully suggest to Your Excellency, to the end that the respective delegates to the Seventh Conference may readily coordinate a uniform orientation with regard to the subjects proposed above, might be effected by means of an exchange of notes, in order to prepare, for the time when the Assembly will meet, an international criterion more or less harmonious and capable of influencing the decisions which they may respectively adopt.
[Page 7]Finally, I take the liberty of respectfully suggesting to Your Excellency, to bring about, if you consider it advisable, a public discussion through the press of your country, to the end that the various opinions to which these problems give rise in the conscience of Hispano-America may be known and that the establishment of firm and secure bases, which may expedite the course of their full realization, may be arrived at more easily.
I beg Your Excellency to accept my sincere thanks in advance for the kind attention that you may give to the foregoing, together with the assurances of my distinguished consideration.
- Note not acknowledged (710.G/150).↩