714.1515/952: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Honduras (Summerlin)
78. Legation’s 104, October 11, 9 p.m. Please present the following note to the Minister for Foreign Affairs:
Excellency: I have the honor to advise Your Excellency that I learned with pleasure from Mr. Summerlin of the willingness of the Government of Honduras to modify its proposal that the boundary dispute with Guatemala be submitted to arbitration by the President of the United States and to propose instead that it be arbitrated by a jurist named by the President of the United States from among the United States members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, it being stipulated by Your Excellency’s Government that such arbitration should be juridical, taking into account certain specified classes of evidence.
The new proposal of the Government of Honduras has been discussed informally with the Guatemalan Government by the American Minister to Guatemala. While the results of this discussion have afforded grounds to hope for an eventual settlement of the question on a basis satisfactory to both parties it is evident that further progress can best be achieved by a frank and friendly exchange of views. The Government of the United States is encouraged by the repeated evidences of the earnest desire which animates Your Excellency’s Government and that of Guatemala to find a solution of this important problem, to hope that a basis for a satisfactory settlement [Page 965] can be found through such a conference, and it accordingly takes pleasure in extending hereby to the Government of Honduras an earnest invitation to authorize its Minister at Washington or to name another delegate, or delegates, duly empowered, to meet with a delegate, or delegates, from the Republic of Guatemala in a conference at which representatives of the Government of the United States will, if so desired by the two Governments concerned, be present. A similar invitation is being addressed to the Government of Guatemala.
Trusting that Your Excellency’s Government may find it possible to accept this invitation, and that in doing so there may be initiated negotiations whose outcome will be satisfactory to the two Governments for whom the Government of the United States entertains sentiments of the highest regard, I avail myself of this opportunity to extend to Your Excellency the renewed assurances of my most distinguished consideration. Henry L. Stimson.”