INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF AMERICAN STATES. 



therefore, opportune for the delegates of the Uni- 

 ted States to assume the part of leadership in the 

 conference, either in its official organization or in 

 its discussions, a position which naturally belongs 

 to Mexico, the inviting nation and host of the 

 occasion." It was desirable, he said, that the 

 plans and propositions of the Latin-American 

 states should be solicited, received with considera- 

 tion, and, if possible, brought to fruition; and 

 great care should be taken not to wound the sen- 

 sibilities of any of the republics or take sides 

 upon issues between them. He warned the dele- 

 gation to proceed with great caution with respect 

 to political differences subsisting between the 

 states, the general principle being to enter as 

 little as possible into these questions, at the same 

 time it being useful to impress upon all the deep 

 interest which the Government of the United 

 States has in the peace and tranquillity of all 

 the American states and their territorial integrity. 

 The sessions dragged on through the month of 

 December, during which the nervous strain caused 

 by the important question of arbitration was ap- 

 parent. Several times it appeared to be the rock 

 upon which the conference was to be wrecked. 

 While Chile had insisted from the very inception 

 of the congress that she did not purpose to assist 

 at a conference where she would be open to at- 

 tack by her enemies, for which reason she in- 

 sisted upon the tentative program being denned 

 as not bringing up vexatious questions, nor the 

 arbitration of past differences, on the other hand 

 her South American neighbors appeared de- 

 termined to force upon her the disagreeable proj- 

 ect of obligatory arbitration. Mexico, in trying 

 to act as peacemaker, incurred the animosity of 

 both parties, and it was said that while she 

 promised Chile that the, to her, disagreeable sub- 

 ject should not be brought up in the conference, 

 she agreed to sign the obligatory arbitration proj- 

 ect in the committee report, in w r hich case the 

 Chilean delegates accused her of duplicity and 

 double-dealing, which they would expose on the 

 floor of the conference if she persisted in sign- 

 ing the project. Mexico, fairly driven into a 

 corner, hesitated to act; and she was accused by 

 the South American combination of having no 

 blood, and, mid threats to withdraw from the 

 conference, several of the delegations remained 

 away from the sessions. Mr. Buchanan worked 

 incessantly and propounded various measures to 

 get the delegations together on the subject and pre- 

 vent the conference from going to smash, when a 

 note of alarm was sounded in open session, about 

 the middle of January, by the presentation of a 

 proposition, signed by nearly all the delegations, 

 proposing a slight change in the rules and regula- 

 tions, which Chile, not having been consulted in 

 the matter, took as part of a determined plan to 

 cut her out of the proceedings. This led to the 

 Chilean delegate, Walker-Martinez, leaving the 

 hall in a rage, the president having refused to 

 adjourn the session upon his calling attention to 

 the fact that the hour for adjournment had 

 passed. But immediately afterward, on motion of 

 Mr. Pardo, one of the Mexican delegates, recog- 

 nizing the right of the Chilean delegate to ask 

 for time to study the proposed change in the 

 regulations, the meeting was adjourned. At the 

 following session, Mr. Walker-Martinez explained 

 his reasons for leaving the hall, expressing, by a 

 few words, in the time necessary for him to walk 

 across the floor, his severe opinion of the conduct 

 of the chairman. His few words, he said, were 

 changed in the columns of a certain newspaper 

 into a series of observations and strictures regard- 

 ing Mexico, which nation he could not possibly 



involve in reproach, whatever might be his opin- 

 ion regarding the conduct of the president of the 

 conference. Finding himself in discord with Mr. 

 Raigosa, he should have acted as he would have 

 acted in the parliament of his own country; but 

 as he was a foreigner and, like every other dele- 

 gate, was indebted to Mexico for its hospitality, 

 he could not ask a vote of censure, for which 

 reason he was compelled to leave the hall quietly. 

 There was a difference of opinion between the 

 president and the speaker, but the time when the 

 incident happened had passed, and he fully ac- 

 cepted the minutes of the previous meeting. Im- 

 mediately upon the adoption of the minutes, the 

 secretary read a note addressed to the president by 

 the delegations of the Argentine Republic, Bolivia, 

 Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, 

 Salvador, the United States, Guatemala, Hayti, 

 Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, 

 and Uruguay, saying that they had signed a pro- 

 tocol in which they declare that the principles 

 established in the convention of The Hague should 

 be considered as American public law, and that 

 the governments of the United States and Mexico 

 had been entrusted with the mission to negotiate 

 their adherence to said treaties accompanying the 

 text of the resolutions approved, in order that 

 they be sent through the secretary to the Mexi- 

 can Minister of Foreign Relations, so that the 

 resolutions be duly executed. This was in ac- 

 cordance with a well-defined plan agreed upon 

 outside of the conference in order to avoid the 

 discussion that had so long threatened the dis- 

 ruption of the conference. But Chile, determined 

 to have her way, through her delegate, Mr. Blest 

 Gana, requested that before giving the customary 

 ruling, the president should order the reading of 

 a project on the same subject presented by his 

 delegation, since said project coincided in ideas and 

 desires with the treaty that had been read. He 

 concluded by saying it was with great pleasure 

 that he saw that his ideas were shared by 

 the majority of the delegations represented. Mr. 

 Carbo, for Ecuador, said he was a partizan 

 to the adherence to the treaty of The Hague, 

 and that he had not signed the protocol pre- 

 sented because the instructions he had from his 

 Government did not allow him to sign any- 

 thing outside of the conference. The president 

 replied to Mr. Blest Gana that the chairman 

 was obliged to have the documents presented 

 to the secretary in the order in which they were 

 received, and that the Chilean project would be 

 read in its turn. When the secretary announced 

 this ruling, a stormy discussion ensued, and the 

 president said that as the ruling of the chairman 

 had been attacked, the assembly would be asked 

 whether it would approve the ruling or not. But 

 before this was put to a vote Mr. Walker- 

 Martinez, for Chile, questioned the right of any <>f 

 the delegations to sign the protocol of any treaty 

 outside of the conference, and a long disni-- i<.n 

 on this point ensued. Gen. Reyes, of Colombia, 

 said his delegation was one of the 15 signing 

 the protocol, and when he attached his signature 

 to it he believed that in that way all kinds of 

 obstacles would be avoided ; but as these obstacles 

 unfortunately had increased he proposed that 

 the proposition submitted by the Chilean delega- 

 tion be read, together with that presented by the 

 15 delegations on the same matter, and a report 

 be submitted thereon. It was finally proposed 

 by the Chilean delegation, in order to overcome 

 the difficulties and facilitate the termination of 

 the matter, that the following proposition be ac- 

 cepted by the conference. 

 " The Chilean delegation takes as its own the 



