722.2315/921
The Minister in Ecuador ( Gonzalez ) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 12.]
Sir: I have the honor to report on a few recent conversations had at the Foreign Office with the Minister of Foreign Relations and the Under Secretary on Saturday, May 2, 1936, in connection with the present status of the Ecuadorean-Peruvian Boundary dispute. You will remember that in a recent despatch sent to the Department reference was therein made to a conversation had with Doctor José Gabriel Navarro3 indicating that a change of policy had been adopted by the Ecuadorean Government. The Minister of Foreign Relations stated that Peru had requested the Ecuadorean Government to send its representatives to Lima to define the arbitration before proceeding in the boundary dispute and it was his opinion and also that of his Executive Council that if said request was made in good faith and not for the purpose of further delays that the Ecuadorean Government would have no objection in so complying, provided, that immediate arrangements thereafter should be made to proceed to Washington. That Ecuador was exceedingly anxious to submit its boundary dispute entirely on legal principles rather than upon an equitable basis as heretofore contended because in the opinion of the Ecuadorean Government it felt that Ecuador could not lose the arbitration whether submitted upon a strictly legal or equitable basis and documentation, [Page 108] and that to definitely determine the procedure to be adopted by Ecuador and its reply to Peru the Ecuadorean Minister to Washington had been summoned to Quito for an expression of his views in the matter. The Minister of Foreign Relations then stated that a few days ago the Minister of Peru to Ecuador, Arturo Garcia Salazar, had called to see him and stated that he brought good news from his Government, and upon inquiry by the Minister of Foreign Relations as to the good news the Peruvian Minister stated that his Government desired to join with the Ecuadorean Government in the formulation of plans to be adopted at the coming peace conference,4 but that he, the Minister of Foreign Relations, had replied that his Government had already forwarded to its Minister in Washington its suggestions and that it could not now join with Peru in that matter.
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Respectfully yours,