Page:Difficulties Between Mexico and Guatemala.djvu/50

 This document, which was issued from the government press, consists of a quarto volume of three hundred and seventy-seven pages, of which one hundred and sixty-three are filled with Mr. Romero's refutation, and the remainder with eighty-three documents illustrative of the text.

This volume bears the title "Refutation of the Charges made against the Citizen Matías Romero by the Government of Guatemala." Mr. Romero, who is well known in the United States as the efficient Minister Plenipotentiary of Mexico during the war of intervention in that republic, was subsequently for several years Minister of Finances under Presidents Juarez and Diaz, member of the Federal Congress, and Postmaster-General, and was recently instrumental in the organization in the United States of the Mexican Southern Railway Company, under the auspices of General U. S. Grant, who accompanied him to Mexico in the spring of 1881.

Mr. Romero begins his refutation by an analysis of the charges made against him, which he divides into seventeen heads, each of which is separately considered. The volume is divided into three parts. Part I is entitled "A Statement of my Conduct in Soconusco in Respect to General Barrios and Guatemala." Part II consists of a "Reply to the Charges made by General Barrios," and Part III is devoted to a consideration of the conduct of General Barrios toward Mexico, especially in reference to the frontier question.

At the outset, Mr. Romero cites the language employed by the Chief Clerk of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Juan de Dios Arias, in the "Memoir of Foreign Affairs," bearing date December 4, 1875, and that of his predecessor, the lamented statesman, Mr. José María