File No. 2491/123.
The Minister of Panama on Special Mission to the Secretary of State.
Washington, February 20, 1910.
Your Excellency: Referring to the various conferences which I have had with your excellency and with the special minister of Costa Rica concerning the proposed arbitration of the differences between the two countries respecting the boundary between them, under the friendly auspices of your excellency’s Government, I regret that any disagreement should have arisen between Panama and Costa Rica.
As I have already informed your excellency, my Government is constitutionally unable, even were it disposed, to consent to the annulment of the Loubet award and the resubmission of the whole question to a new arbitrator. Such a course would, moreover, be productive of no practical result, since the conditions which compelled President Loubet to describe the boundary in terms so general as to have given rise to the differences which followed it would make it equally impossible for any other arbitrator to be more precise and definite.
The result of a second arbitration of the whole question, were it possible, must necessarily be to give rise to new discussions of exactly the same character as those which have arisen under the Loubet award and differing from them only in the name of the arbitrator whose award is discussed.
[Page 809]In order that it should be possible to ascertain definitely the boundary line, there must be a survey and examination of the line and the territory through which it runs, made authoritatively by engineers commissioned for that purpose, the result of whose labors will leave no room for doubt as to the typography of the country or the true course of the boundary line.
Such a commission of delimitation, fixing and marking the boundary as they proceeded, and thus every possible question arising upon the subject would be finally, authoritatively, and conclusively determined at one and the same time.
With a view to this end, and with the sincere desire of reaching an amicable settlement of the subject, and of showing by every means in its power its warm appreciation of the mediation of your excellency’s Government, my Government has authorized me to propose the following method of procedure:
A commission shall be appointed of four engineers, one to be named by the President of the Republic of Panama, one by the President of the Republic of Costa Rica, and the other two by the President of the United States. The latter two shall be citizens and residents of the United States, civil engineers in private practice, and in every respect independent and impartial and without personal interest as respects either of the Republics of Panama or Costa Rica or any other in either of said countries.
These four engineers shall proceed, by actual survey upon the ground, to lay out and mark the boundary line between the two Republics in accordance with the Loubet Award, and bearing in mind the limitation of that award, expressed in the letter of M. Delcasse to Señor Peralta, minister of Costa Rica at Paris, of November 23, 1900, that this boundary line must be drawn within the confines of the territory in dispute as determined by the convention of Paris between the Republic of Colombia and the Republic of Costa Rica of January 20, 1886.
Should the commission be unable to agree upon the true location of any portion of said line, or should either the Republic of Panama or the Republic of Costa Rica be dissatisfied with the decision of said commission with respect to the location of any part of said line, the questions thus arising shall be submitted to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who shall decide, as final arbitrator, the true location of such part of said line under and in accordance with terms of the Loubet Award. In any case of such inability of the commission of engineers to fix any part of said line, or dissatisfaction of either of the Republics with any part of the line as located by said commission, the commission shall prepare a full and accurate map from their own original independent surveys of the entire region through which that portion of said line in question runs, which shall be submitted to said arbitrator, with their report and the questions arisen thereon, for his decision, and in every such case, the line as finally fixed by said arbitrator shall be deemed the true line, and his determination of the same shall be final, conclusive and without appeal, and the commission should proceed to make the line in accordance therewith.
The expenses of such arbitration shall be borne by the two Republics equally.
[Page 810]Your excellency will observe that an acceptance of this proposition by the Republic of Costa Rica will lead to a speedy and absolute termination of all differences between the two Republics concerning the boundary between them. It will make impossible any further question as to the location of that line, and, if the commission be authorized to mark the line as so determined by suitable monuments, will obviate even the necessity of a new commission of delimitation.
The proposition, in fact, differs from the proposition made by Señor Pacheco, then secretary of foreign affairs of Costa Rica, by his letter of July 27, 1901, to Señor Marroquin, then minister of Colombia to Costa Rica, only in that Señor Pacheco proposed that an interpretation of the award should precede the delimitation, while under this proposal the delimitation and arbitration proceed together and the arbitration will be based upon an accurate knowledge of the geographical facts involved, which knowledge is essential to an accurate judgment by the arbitrator of the points which may arise.
It is obvious that in the absence of this definite information no arbitrator could decide any such points. The same difficulty which made it impossible for President Loubet to define the line so exactly as to avoid dispute would make it equally impossible for the new arbitrator to do so. But by the proceeding suggested, the new arbitrator will have before him all the data which can be required, and will be able to interpret the award of President Loubet with full knowledge of the actual situation.
It is, therefore, the logical, reasonable, and proper course that the survey of the line and the country through which it runs should precede the arbitration, and this modification of the former proposal of Costa Rica involve no essential change, but only a useful and necessary modification of the procedure by which the results contemplated by that proposal shall be attained.
My Government is confident that in this way the amicable settlement of all differences between the Republics of Panama and Costa Rica, which it is no less desirous than is your excellency’s Government to attain, may be reached in an equitable, reasonable, and honorable way, and it trusts that its proposition may meet with approval of your excellency’s Government and with that of Costa Rica.
Accept, etc.,