714.1515/785: Telegram
The Minister in Guatemala (Geissler) to the Secretary of State
[Received 11:40 p.m.]
102. Referring to my cable of July 27, 9 a.m. The Minister for Foreign Affairs has sent me with covering note a copy of a note he was sending on August 4th to the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Honduras [Page 765] and which stated in substance that the mediation came about through an agreement participated in by Honduras and Guatemala with the participation of the United States as mediator; that the Mixed Boundary Commission had adjourned subject to call by the chairman, United States Minister Davis, to enable him to study the facts and to fix a provisional boundary in compliance with the charge entrusted to him; that, as a proceeding within the mediation, the Secretary of State of the United States had suggested an arbitration and that the Mixed Commission draw up the protocol of arbitration; that the unilateral action of one of the parties would signify the exclusion of the mediator prior to rendition of the decision with which he was charged; that the note of Secretary of State Kellogg did not render the existence of the Commission useless; that, therefore, Guatemala considers the Honduran Executive order as being purely for the purpose of changing the personnel of its Boundary Commission, but that if the Honduran Government were to give to that order “the far-reaching international importance of putting an end to the functions of the Mixed Commission,” the Government of Guatemala “regrets to record its due and formal protest.”
In compliance with a request of the Minister for Foreign Affairs the press appears to have been uniformly temperate in comments on the reply of Honduras to the arbitration proposal of Mr. Kellogg.
Repeated to Honduras.