Ignacio Mariscal

“ Romero visited the hacienda of Malacate to inspect the lands proposed for the coffee plantation, and then devoted himself to the formation of his own India-rubber plantation, called the Hular de Zuchiate, on lands adjacent to the sea. In August, 1873, he again visited Malacate in company with a government surveyor, and effected the denouncement and survey of a tract of public lands adequate for the contemplated coffee plantation to the north of Malacate, adjacent to the reputed frontier of Guatemala, but taking care that the lands in question should be exclusively on Mexican territory. ”

“ In the various interviews which he had with Don Manuel Pavon, Minister of Foreign Affairs of that republic, that gentleman constantly refused to celebrate a treaty of limits, and said that Guatemala proposed, in the pending negotiations with Mexico, to simply recognize the statu quo of the frontier between the two countries without any alteration. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Even during the empire of Iturbide it was not conquest but the free-will of the inhabitants of Chiapas and Soconusco which determined their annexation to Mexico, as well as that of all the provinces of Central America except Salvador. In the use of the same liberty, they afterward separated from this country and formed with Guatemala a republic; always excepting Chiapas and Soconusco, which, after Mexico became a republic, re newed their determination to remain incorporated therewith. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He then made the acquaintance of General José Rufino Barrios, now President of Guatemala, making him a visit in Quezaltenango, and establishing with him relations of confidence, and even intimacy. General Barrios was highly pleased at the proposed establishment of Mr. Romero on the frontier of Soconusco, where he possessed, in Mexican territory, a hacienda called Malacate, which he offered for sale. General Barrios accompanied Mr. Romero on his return to Tapachula, the capital of Soconusco, where, at the instance of the latter, public demonstrations were made in his honor. ”

“ They went—not, as alleged, to take a census in disputed territory—but to exercise acts of jurisdiction in the place, in order afterward to adduce them as a proof of possession by Guatemala. It is to be noted that the inhabitants of Tacaná, whose alcalde is the present subject of discussion, were the same who at a former time advanced the boundary-post of Pinabete, and that the rancherias in question would have been on Guatemalan territory if the said landmark had remained where it was then placed, on which spot the cross was afterward raised by the Guatemalan engineers. ”

“ Romero with the greatest cordiality, expressed a desire that he should settle within the territory of Guatemala, offered him the necessary resources for the purchase of lands, and expressed a desire to become his partner in establishing a new coffee plantation on Mexican public lands adjacent to his hacienda of Malacate and to the Guatemalan frontier. ”

“ This opinion, doubtless, displeased General Barrios, who desired more efficacious measures to be taken. An order was subsequently obtained from the governor of the State of Chiapas for sending the prisoners to the state capital, but Captain Tellez, in command of a company of federal troops at Tapachula, refused to surrender them. The same officer co-operated with the prisoners respecting their projected invasion of Guatemala, seizing upon all the Guatemalan Indians in the vicinity to increase the ranks of his company. ”

“ The period fixed by the convention expired definitively before the scientific commissions had concluded 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. ”

“ In the same note it is stated that the forces of the Emperor Iturbide having occupied a large portion of the territory of Central America, the fortune of war forced them to abandon all that territory except Soconusco and Chiapas, and that Mexico, after becoming a republic, did not desist from reclamations founded upon the imperial policy of absorption and conquest. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This was, perhaps, the cause of the sending of the first installment of federal troops, consisting of but sixty men, who arrived in November, 1873. Unfortunately, through the ignorance and inaptitude of their commander. ”