714.44A15/36
The Chargé in Guatemala (McKinney) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 26.]
Sir: I have the honor to inform the Department that during the course of an interview which I had yesterday with the Foreign Minister of this Government he stated that he had just had an extended discussion with the Minister of Great Britain in Guatemala relative to the matter of the British Honduras–Guatemala boundary dispute and that he was glad to report that the British Government is beginning to display a much more reasonable attitude towards the Guatemalan claims, this despite the statement made in the British Note of March 3, 1938, to this Government to the effect that “no useful purpose would be served in carrying the matter further” (Legation’s despatch No. 534 of March 16, 1938). He further informed me that the British Government had again expressed its willingness to submit the matter to arbitration, but that no agreement relative to the personality of the mediator appears possible, since Great Britain insists on referring the dispute to either the Hague Tribunal or the Council of the League of Nations, while President Ubico, on the other hand, insists on an American arbitrator. This statement was subsequently substantially confirmed in a conversation which I had this morning with the British Minister.
President Ubico is keeping the matter continuously before the attention of the Central American Governments by notes through the medium of the Guatemalan Ministers to those countries, requesting the moral support of those Governments, and it is understood that he is contemplating asking conjoint action in the form of economic sanctions should all other recourse fail. His efforts in this direction seem to have met with some measure of success, especially in El Salvador, where newspaper comment has been distinctly favorable to the Guatemalan cause.
Respectfully yours,