File No. 6775/636–637.
Chargé Gibson to the Secretary of State.
Tegucigalpa, January 20, 1909.
Sir: I have the honor to report that the First Central American Conference adjourned this afternoon at 3 o’clock. Until this morning it was the intention of the delegates not to sign the convention until the 24th of this month. However, the Guatemalan delegate, supported by the Salvadorean delegate, urged the termination of the conference at an earlier date. Under these circumstances the convention was prepared rather hurriedly and signed this morning at 11 o’clock.
I inclose a copy of the convention.1
The entire work of this conference was preparatory and none of the projected arrangements will enter into operation until further action is taken by the five Republics and the Second Central American Conference, which is to meet in the city of San Salvador on January 1, 1910.
The delegates were not sufficiently informed concerning their laws and resources to discuss intelligently the questions of monetary union and customs union, and therefore the dispositions of the convention on these points are merely indicative of preparatory legislation, etc.
The convention establishes the metric system of weights and measures as the official system for the five Republics and indicates the steps to be taken to put it into operation.
The Costa Rican delegate presented a plan, embodied in Section VI of the convention, for the unification of the consular services of the Republics of Central America.
I have, etc.,
- Not printed.↩