Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress December 6, 1910

File No. 2491/123.

Identic memorandum handed to Señor Don Luis Anderson, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Costa Rica on Special Mission, and Dr. Belisario Porras, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Panama on Special Mission, at the conference held at the Department of State on March 1, 1910, at 3 p.m.

[Washington, March 1, 1910, 3 p.m.]

The Secretary of State has given the most studious attention to the respective attitudes of the Governments of Costa Rica and of Panama as revealed by a long correspondence and as finally crystallized in the specific proposals, received respectively on February 2¹ and February 25,¹ supplemented by the very important statements made orally at the conferences of the 25th and 26th ultimo.

The Secretary of State is well aware of the desires of Costa Rica that the proposed arbitration shall be as broad as possible. He is equally sensible of the considerations which impel the Government of Panama to insist upon the Loubet Award as a basis for the definitive determination of the boundary. It was a source of great satisfaction to take note of the fact that both parties are in practical agreement as to the boundary line from the Pacific Ocean to a point beyond Cerro Pando on the Central Cordillera. The fact that the difficulties to overcome are thus confined to the determination of the line thence to the Atlantic, caused the Secretary of State to entertain the gratifying hope that, in view of the conciliatory and candid spirit animating the two Governments, it would surely be a matter of no great difficulty to reach a satisfactory solution.

Animated by this hope and in response to the desire of both Govments that the United States should lend its good offices in connection with the proposed arbitration, the Secretary of State has arrived at a theory which, in his judgment, should form a basis substantially satisfactory and entirely considerate of the respective contentions.

The Secretary of State, therefore, suggests that the compromis stipulate the acceptance of the line to the extent above mentioned as free from doubt and, continuing, state the question to be arbitrated as the following:

What is the boundary between the Republics of Costa Rica and Panama under and most in accordance with the true interpretation and correct intention of the Loubet award in the light of all the historical, geographical, topographical, and other facts and circumstances surrounding it as well as under the established principles of international law?

The Secretary of State also deems it important, in the interest of justice and for the avoidance of future disputes, that the arbitration convention contain some such stipulation as the following:

All valid titles to land or other valid rights of property in the disputed territory granted or created by either Republic, or by the Republic of Colombia, either before or after the rendition of the Loubet award, shall be recognized and protected in case the result of this arbitration shall be to transfer the locus of such titles and rights and the sovereignty over the same from the Republic granting or creating the same to the other Republic.

As to the very interesting and able suggestion of the Panaman Government that the question should be solved by a joint surveying and arbitrating commission, which should refer to the actual arbitrator all questions of difference between them or between their respective Governments, the Secretary of State has given to this proposal the sympathetic analysis which its importance made appropriate, bearing in mind, however, the fact that the arbitrator would naturally call for a survey in all eases when he found a necessity for more precise topographical information, the Secretary of State has deemed more practical that the arbitrator should proceed and himself call for all data which he might find relevant to the question before him, and that, anticipating this possibility, the protocol should instead contain a provision whereby the two Governments would agree to share the expense of a surveying commission appointed by the arbitrator, if the latter should require such survey at any stage of his consideration of the question.

1. Proposals referred to were draft of a protocol [not printed] suggested by the Special Minister of Costa Rica delivered at the Department of State on Feb. 2, and the note of Feb. 20 from the special minister of Panama delivered at a conference held on Feb. 25.
1. Proposals referred to were draft of a protocol [not printed] suggested by the Special Minister of Costa Rica delivered at the Department of State on Feb. 2, and the note of Feb. 20 from the special minister of Panama delivered at a conference held on Feb. 25.