714.1515/952: Telegram
The Minister in Guatemala (Geissler) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 22—12:17 a.m.]
131. The Minister for Foreign Affairs called today and presented to me an unofficial and confidential memorandum stating “that he considers unacceptable the proposition of the Government of Honduras [Page 963] which comprises two different points, that is to say: (1) To submit to the arbitration of one of the American judges of the Hague Court to be selected by the President of the United States the boundary question existing between Guatemala and Honduras; (2) a condition of that arbitration is that it be exclusively de jure.”
He contends in the memorandum that Honduras is, by the 1923 convention, bound to submit the controversy to the Central American Tribunal37 and that Honduras could waive its reservation to the inter-American arbitration treaty of the present year.38 He adds that “if it were possible” for him to do so he would accept one of the American judges of the Hague Court or the President of the United States or the Chief Justice as the presiding member for the Central American Tribunal.
He makes arguments against an arbitration de jure and closes by predicting that acceptance of the formula proposed by Honduras “would produce great public excitement tending toward revolution”.
Repeated to Honduras and Costa Rica.