Page:Difficulties Between Mexico and Guatemala.djvu/18

 their labors, and Mexico, which has always wished to attain a truthful and conscientious decision, is laboring for the renewal of the said convention, in order to continue the boundary survey, without which it would seem that there is no possibility of rationally continuing the discussion, or of arriving at an agreement, or of an intelligent decision of the questions at issue, by a third party.

This will prove to Mr. Morgan two things: first, that the Mexican Government positively desires to bring the question of boundary to a just and pacific conclusion, and second, that it is not possible at present even to say whether this question, at least in part, may become a proper one for an arbitration.

As to the other part, i.e., the perfect title of Mexico to the state of Chiapas, including the department or district of Soconusco, of which it has been in possession for so many years, the Mexican Government has several times declared that it does not and can not decorously admit any question. What it has consented to discuss among the claims of Guatemala, and for which it has been surveying and mapping out the frontier, is the matter of the boundaries of Chiapas and Soconusco, on the Guatemala side. But it may readily be seen that this can not yet give occasion to an arbitration, since the data have not yet been obtained which have been thought indispensable for the decision of the points at issue.

Mexico is very far from absolutely refusing arbitration, but does not think it possible at present, for the reasons just mentioned, and reserves her decision as to accepting it in the future, concerning certain points on which it might be useful. If it were not for these reasons, she would be glad to take into consideration,