Mr. Gresham to Mr. Gana.
Washington , December 22, 1894 .
Sir: I received in due course your note of the 15th ultimo, in which having reference to the matter of completing the settlement of the claims between the United States and Chile, which was interrupted by the adjournment of the late Mixed Commission without action upon a number of cases duly presented under the convention of August 7, 1892, you communicate the statement of the minister of foreign relations that there has doubtless been some misapprehension in the reports made to this Department regarding the willingness of the Government of Chile to dispose of those unadjusted claims by a new convention. His excellency declares that Chile never, either in its correspondence with the chargé d’affaires of the United States or on any other occasion subsequent to the convention of 1892, agreed that a new convention be organized at Washington for that purpose. In support of this view you inclose copies of the correspondence on the subject with our legation at Santiago.
On April 11, 1894, Mr. McGarr wrote asking whether the Chilean Government would consent to sign another convention for the creation of another commission for the purpose mentioned. Señor Bascuñan acknowledged this April 16, promising timely communication of the conclusion which should be reached in the matter. Later, on May 31, 1894, his excellency further answered Mr. McGarr’s note of April 11, saying that in view of conferences between the Chilean minister at Washington and the Secretary of State, he, Señor Bascuñan, “had agreed to conduct in this capital [Washington] the negotiations to which the said note refers.” The negotiations referred to in Mr. McGarr’s note were stated to be for “another convention for the creation of another commission,” and this, also, was the proposal considered by you and me in the conferences to which his excellency adverts as having led him to the announced agreement to negotiate further in Washington. I submit that the impression formed by this Government respecting the intentions of your own was reasonably deducible from these premises, especially as the only point of essential disagreement developed in my preceding conferences with you concerned the place where the new commission should sit, you favoring Santiago and I Washington.
[Page 94]However this may be, it is evident that your note shows a misunderstanding between the two Governments, not as to the necessity of disposing of the unfinished work of the late commission, as to which both are in accord, but as to the proper manner of accomplishing that necessary result.
I have no reason to change the views I have so often expressed to you and otherwise made known to your Government, that the natural and reasonable way is to carry to completion the adjustment begun under the operation of the convention of 1892. The reasons which induced the two Governments to come to an agreement then for a commission to sit at Washington, apply now with even greater force. The evidence in the undecided cases laid before the tribunal is carefully preserved here, and it would not be fair to the claimants of cither Government to revert at this interrupted stage of the proceedings to methods of settlement which at the outset were considered and abandoned. If the unfinished cases are not disposed of by a commission it is believed that the controversy between the two Governments will be prolonged indefinitely.
Having once adopted arbitration as an honorable mode of adjustment, it behooves the two friendly Governments to adhere to it to its legitimate end. Failure to do so now, when the work is more than half done, can but discredit the labors of the late honorable commission and detract from the high example our Governments have set by advocating and accepting arbitration to end their differences. The organization of a new commission should be as easy as its task would be brief.
I am, therefore, directed by the President, to whom the whole matter has been referred, to lay the foregoing considerations before the Government you so worthily represent, and urge that it join with ours in giving full effect to the methods stipulated in 1892.
Accept, etc.,