INTERNATIONAL IRRIGATION CONGRESS

File No. 561.13A23/1a

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, September 8, 1916.

To the Diplomatic Officers of the United States

GENTLEMEN: Pursuant to a provision contained in the Agricultural Appropriation Act, approved August 11, 1916, you are instructed to extend to the governments to which you are respectively accredited an invitation to appoint delegates or representatives to the International Irrigation Congress to be held at El Paso, Texas, October 14-18, 1916.

At this coming Congress, subjects will be discussed appertaining to the methods, systems and apparatus looking to the better irrigation of farm and other lands, and particularly to the reclamation of arid country, and it is expected that at this meeting much information will be available of value to those engaged in farming and other agricultural pursuits.

You will express to the government of your official residence the hope that it will send delegates to attend the Congress and explain that, while the invitation is extended by the authority of the Congress of the United States, the coming International Irrigation Congress will not be held under the auspices of this Government, as no provision has been made by that body for the payment of the expenses of foreign representatives who may attend or for their entertainment in this country.

Following the International Irrigation Congress, there will be held at El Paso, the International Farm Congress of which you have been previously advised.

Participation in this conference by the nations of the world will be heartily welcomed by the management of the International Irrigation Congress.

I am [etc.]

ROBERT LANSING

ARGENTINA

MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT, VICTORINO DE LA PLAZA, TO THE

SIR: I have the honor to enclose copy of the official volume containing the President's speech at the opening of Congress.

I enclose translation of that part of the President's address which relates to Mexico, Pan American affairs and the relations of the Argentine Government with the United States.

I have [etc.]

F. J. STIMSON

[Inclosure Translation]

At the beginning of your last session I had occasion to inform you of the invitation extended by the Government of the United States to be represented at the Pan American Financial Conference, which was to meet at Washington with the object of establishing closer financial relations among the nations of this continent. I also had occasion to inform you of the names of the delegates appointed to represent Argentina at that conference.

Principally on account of the abnormal circumstances of the American Republics resulting from the European war, reacting on them by reason of the close economic relations of the two continents and compelling them to resort first of all to their own resources, the conference could not fail to do a valuable work. Its results will be felt in a future which I presume to be almost immediate.

That conference resolved that, in each of the nations represented, a High Commission should be constituted, presided over by the Minister of Finance in each country, charged with the study of the best methods for obtaining uniform Pan American legislation in financial and commercial matters. These High Commissions were to send their representatives to this capital in November, 1915, to study the general bases for another financial conference to occur in Washington in 1916.

It was later decided to defer the meeting in Buenos Aires until April, 1916, and hence to postpone the Washington conference until 1917.

The Representatives of the High Commissions of the several countries met in Buenos Aires on the date indicated and fulfilled their purpose. Their work assures the success of the labors of the conference to be held in the United States next year.

Turning from a consideration of the circumstances attendant upon the state of war in Europe, the outlook for international American relations is very favorable.

Last year we were honored with the visit of the Foreign Ministers of Brazil and Chile, who came in the name of their respective Governments, to join in our patriotic celebrations. This visit produced, as you know, the signing of the peace treaty of May 25, 1915.

Conceived in the same spirit as the agreements latterly signed between the United States and the principal countries of the continent and with European nations, this instrument, which is at present before the Chamber of Deputies and already ratified by the Senate, is the last link in the chain which morally and materially united the three countries.

Like the Bryan treaty, since last year awaiting the sanction of Congress, the document signed on May 25, by the Chancellors of Argentina, Brazil and Chile tends to push to the remotest corner of probability a conflict between the three Powers; so that I can term it the culmination of an extended diplomatic effort destined to place upon an immovable foundation the friendship of three nations whose combined endeavor is a guarantee of peace and progress for this part of America. So that it is not hyperbolical to affirm that the investigation commission for which it provides will be the materialization, as it were, of the triumph secured in the cause of peace against the thousand factors daily opposed to its ideals.

The vote with which the Argentine Senate ratified the treaty and the approval of the Brazilian and Chilean Chambers are, it seems, a safe guarantee of the fact that the legislative bodies of the three nations have put a just appreciation on the work to which I have referred.

The perfect understanding on general matters which is the result of the Pan American policy of the three Governments which are signatories to the treaty of May 25, was once more brought into prominence in connection with the deplorable state of affairs in Mexico, which unfortunately still continues. Congress will remember our action at the critical time when a difference between the United States and General Huerta, then in power in Mexico City, might have imperiled the peace of the continent. North American troops had already been landed at Vera Cruz and blood had already been spilt, when the Governments of Argentina, Brazil and Chile offered their mediation, happily accepted by the disputants.

In the Niagara Falls conferences which followed, the mediation proved most successful. The Government of the United States renounce with regard to Mexico all claim to indemnization or satisfaction and, recognizing that the country had no constitutional head, agreed to recognize the provisional government which the Mexican factions should elect in place of the government of Huerta, voluntarily resigning. The better to effect this, the mediators, through from the first, in accordance with a traditional attitude of the Argentine Chancellery, they had declined any intervention in Mexican internal affairs and were not disposed to abandon that position, favored a meeting between Generals Carranza and Huerta, for an exchange of ideas as a solution of their differences.

On September 16, 1914, the first part of the engagement entered into by the United States was materialized: the North American troops evacuated Vera Cruz. The other part of the engagement could not be carried out right away. The representatives of the two great Mexican factions could not agree and even when Carranza had taken possession of the City of Mexico, evacuated by Huerta, and had thereby entered into the exercise of the executive powers, the Zapatists and Villistas continued to war among themselves and against the occupant of the capital.

During 1915, anarchy in Mexico reached a fearful height, followed by the ruin, misery and depopulation of the unfortunate country. It was a hecatomb which the conscience of America could not look upon indifferently, and the sympathy of all the countries of the continent was aroused.

Voicing this general sentiment, Secretary Lansing, the new Secretary of State of the United States, called a meeting of the Ambassadors of the A. B. C., with the three senior American Ministers at Washington (who proved to be the Ministers of Uruguay, Bolivia and Guatemala), inviting them to unite in a Pan American effort to solve the Mexican problem.

Faithful to our policy of nonintervention, so many times reiterated, the Argentine Ambassador at this meeting and subsequent ones from the first sustained his conviction that the pacification of Mexico was a thing to be effected solely through the action of Mexicans and that, without any outside intervention, only a government recognized by the chief Powers could bring about that result and secure happiness to the unfortunate country. Others shared this opinion with him.

In that conviction and in the belief that the lack of a responsible international medium added not a little to the want of security for the life and

property of the Mexicans themselves and of strangers resident in the country, the conference decided forthwith to limit the scope of its action to securing recognition for a government which could furnish the securities necessary, refraining entirely from interference with the Mexican factions and from bringing pressure to bear upon any of them.

The conference having resolved to accept whatever political situation might ensue from this step, from the point of view of the physical and moral possibilities which the government to be so chosen might offer in guarantee of the interests of all the inhabitants of Mexico, two paths to the desired goal lay before them. They might have issued a call to all the warring factions to come to an agreement to appoint a government to be recognized or which might be accorded recognition motu proprio, or, if an agreement were impossible, appeal to the persons constituted in authority who would actually retain power in the capital, with the greater probability of prevailing over the other parties.

One compromise and another was tried. Personally and unofficially each one of the members of Mr. Lansing's conference offered his good services to the Mexican 'bosses,' without result. This means having been abandoned, the conference was forced to adopt the second and on September 18, 1915, concluded its sessions, affirming the necessity for some responsible authority, but leaving each Government free to judge for itself of the capacity of any one of the Mexican parties to fulfil the duties of Government before the world and free to recognize such a government when it deemed it most opportune. In view of this resolution and in accordance with simple and inevitable facts, the Argentine Ambassador, in accordance with instructions from his Government, on October 19, last year delivered the formal recognition by the Argentine Government of General Carranza as provisional president of Mexico.

Other Powers had been before hand with us in this; they, like ourselves, had doubtless believed that this procedure was necessary if the countries of America were to help, even indirectly, in the pacification of the sister State. We have now only to hope that a moral force and an international authority such as have been vested upon the present government of Mexico through recognition, will bring the country the peace which we all have so ardently desired for her.

INTERNATIONAL HIGH COMMISSION ON UNIFORM LEGISLATION, CREATED BY THE FIRST PAN AMERICAN FINANCIAL CONFERENCE;' FIRST GENERAL MEETING. DRAFT TREATY PROVIDING FOR AN INTERNATIONAL GOLD CLEARANCE FUND

File No. 810.51/517

The Secretary of the Treasury to the Secretary of State

TREASURY DEPARTMENT, Washington, February 18, 1916. MY DEAR MR. SECRETARY: With reference to your letter of the twenty-first of January, in which you discuss the necessity for fully informing the State Department of the work carried out under the recommendation of the Pan American Financial Conference, I am happy to set forth briefly at this time the chief points in connection with this work that will be of interest to the Department of State. As you are aware, the International High Commission is the result of the First Pan American Financial Conference. That conference clearly realized that some sort of permanent standing committee would have to be chosen for the purpose of preparing the work of future conferences, as well as for the more important pur

pose of making effective its own specific recommendations. One may sum up these recommendations by saying that the Financial Conference urged the adoption of a program of sustained and persistent public action looking to the removal of positive or negative obstacles to the promotion of closer financial and commercial relations between the American Republics. The conference found that the obstacles to the strengthening and expansion of inter-American trade relations consisted now in the conflict of various systems of administrative law or fiscal regulations; now in fundamental disagreements between distinct juristic theories and traditions; again in the friction between the technical rules providing for the adjustment of differences in questions so highly specialized as those of literary property, patents of invention and trademarks; or, finally, in the fundamental negative obstacle or an absence of real cooperation between the financial communities of the several republics. These obstacles, the conference thought, should be subjected to searching study by groups of financial, legal and technical experts, organized on an international basis and working in close cooperation, both by correspondence and in conference assembled. The Financial Conference, therefore, solemnly recommended the creation of an international commission consisting of national sections, each of nine members, and each presided over by the Minister of Finance or Secretary of the Treasury. This commission was to devote itself to the study of those problems and to evolve practical methods of resolving them. The concensus of opinion as to what in each case would best serve common interests would finally be formulated into concrete measures of substantial harmony and unity of purpose, such measures respectfully to be submitted to the consideration of the legislative bodies of the participating republics.

All the governments that were represented at the First Financial Conference have named their representatives. It is true that not all of them have named sections of nine men; Colombia will be represented apparently only by one, and Honduras only by three commissioners; and in a few cases the Ministers of Finance will not serve as Chairmen. I am happy to enclose a list of members of the various sections, as known to us at this time.2

The various sections have begun their work and are exchanging preliminary views upon the topics proposed for their consideration by the Financial Conference. Some of the sections have added new topics to the original list submitted by the conference, and among these should be numbered the United States Section, which has recommended the study of the following topics:

1. Necessity of better transportation facilities between the American Republics, and means of securing them.

2. Improved banking facilities; extension of credits; financing of enterprises, public and private.

3. Stabilizing of international exchange.

4. Arbitration of commercial disputes.

5. Negotiable instruments; bills of lading; warehouse receipts. 6. Uniformity of customs regulations and classification of merchandise.

7. Postage rates; parcel post and money order facilities.

Not printed.