No. 48.
Mr. Logan
to Mr. Frelinghuysen.
Santiago, May 9, 1883. (Received June 15.)
Sir: Two very important events have transpired since my last dispatch, which strongly announce the approaching close of the war.
Firstly, the negotiations which have been going on between Señor Novoa, the Chilian representative in Lima, and Señor Lavalle, the minister of General Iglesias, have closed with satisfaction to both parties, and the agreement has been formally signed by Lavalle. Nothing now remains to complete the agreement save the signature thereto of Iglesias himself. For the purpose of obtaining this the document has been sent to Cajamarca. As Lavalle has acted throughout directly under the instruction of Iglesias, the signature of the latter is supposed to be a question simply involving the time necessary for the transmission and return of the protocol.
* * * Tarapaca, with all its guano and salitres, is ceded unconditionally and forever to Chili. Military occupation of Tacna and Arica to the latter is granted for the period of ten years, at the end of which time a vote of the inhabitants of the district is to be taken. The party to whom the district is voted is to pay ten million dollars to the other.
As to the debt, no responsibility attaches to Chili other than that she shall give 50 per cent. of the proceeds of the sale of guano to the Peruvian bondholders, as specified in the Chilian decree of February 9, 1882.* * * Iglesias attempted to make a stipulation that 50 per cent. of the proceeds from the sale of the nitrates of Tarapaca should also go to the bondholders. This stipulation was resisted by Chili, and Iglesias withdrew it.
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These stipulations form the basis of the treaty with Iglesias.
You will perceive upon a review of them that Peru has lost greatly through the obstinacy of Calderon in refusing to accept the terms I obtained for him. The military occupation is for ten years instead of five the latter being the term which I secured. In ten years Chili will have [Page 101] so arranged matters that the plebiscite will merely mean the formal voting of the district to Chili; in five years Peru, might have had a chance to recover it.
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The second of these events is even more important than the first.* * * Bolivia formally and officially agrees to make a truce with Chili, separate and apart from Peru. Commissioners are at once to be appointed and sent to Tacna to negotiate this truce, which will probably be that of which a copy is embodied in my No. 35.
Whatever may be the terms obtained by Iglesias, it is fortunate for Peru that they have been secured before this last coup d’état of Chili, by which the alliance would be effectually broken and Peru left entirely in the hands of her conqueror.
As soon as this determination of the Bolivian Government becomes known, and the Peruvians realize that Campero has actually left them, there will be a revolution at once against Montero, who has only been able to suppress it thus long through promises of Bolivian fidelity to the alliance and the most thorough exercise of terrorism. Then the single hope of Peru will lie in the treaty which Iglesias has been negotiating. Should this be consummated in time, the cession of territory will stop with Tacna and Arica, but should the Peruvians break this agreement, Chili will doubtless consider herself absolved from all engagements with Iglesias, and will make such new demands as the fortunate situation in which the breaking of the alliance will place her may enable her to enforce.
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I have, &c.,