de que manera haya cambiado el cambio debe ser avulsivo y la antigua línea divisoria restablecida sin mayores pruebas, porque cualquiera otro cambio de los que implica la mayor de las premisas del silogismo del Comisionado mejicano y que debe ser alegado y probado, pudiere ocurrir por medios artificiales como jetties muelles, obstrucciones ó dragas etc. que están prohibidas en el art. 11 del tratado de 1884."

Siento, pues, por las razones aducidas, no poder convenir con el Comisionado mejicano que el cambio en el Chamizal caso No. 4 fué ocasionado por la apertura de un nuevo canal ó haciendo otro más profundo del lado mejicano de acuerdo con el artículo II del Tratado de 1884, pero soy de la opinión terminante que el cambio fué ocasionado por causas naturales, por "corrosion lenta y gradual" y depósito del aluvión "conforme al art. I del tratado de 1884.

El Comisionado de los Estados-Unidos habiendo concluido su réplica á las conclusiones del Comisionado mejicano, y los dos Comisionados no pudiendo llegar á un entendimiento, decidieron concluir el estudio del caso, conocido por "El Chamizal” No. 4, informando cada cual á su gobierno del desacuerdo y remitiendo copias completas de las actas en este caso.

La Comisión mixta en seguida se aplazó á las 12-30 P. M.

F. JAVIER OSORNO.

S. F. MAILLEFERT.

ANSON MILLS.

JOHN A. HAPPER.

DOCUMENTS AND PROCEEDINGS RELATING TO THE APPLICATION OF THE MEXICAN COMMISSIONER FOR THE REOPENING OF THE CHAMIZAL CASE.

Department of State.

International (Water) Boundary Commission.

United States and Mexico.
Treaties of 1884 and 1889.

EL PASO, TEXAS, August 8th, 1896.

To the Honorable, The SECRETARY OF STATE,

Washington, D. C.

SIR: On the 4th instant I transmitted to you the voluminous proceedings in the Chamizal Case, No. 4, on the last page of which, in the journal of July 17th, you will observe the case was finally terminated and duly signed by both Commissioners and their Secretaries. The signatures however, were not affixed until the 27th, owing to the delay of the Mexican Commission in translating and copying of the English into Spanish.

Soon after the affixing of the signatures however, the Mexican Commissioner through his Secretary, made verbal application to have the case reopened and submitted on the first instant, a voluminous addition to his compendium, of fifty-five pages of manuscript; a translation in manuscript of which I enclose herewith (Marked Exhibit "A"). I replied in writing (copy enclosed marked Exhibit "B") declining to reopen the case.

On the second instant, I received from the Mexican Commissioner a letter (copy in translation enclosed marked “C”), requesting a meeting of the Commission on the succeeding day. The Joint Commission met August 4th, and proceeded to take up and formulate a decision in the Island Case, after agreeing to which, the Mexican Commissioner announced, as will be observed in the incomplete record (copy enclosed marked "D") that he declined to sign it until I reopened the Chamizal Case, and so continued to decline every other proposition made to him at the meeting, announcing that it was dissolved, and leaving the room in a state of displeasure, notwithstanding, I informed him that I would send his manuscript to the Department for whatever consideration it might be given there; (See enclosure marked "E") but I was firm

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in my refusal to reopen the case, and shall maintain this attitude unless advised by the Department to take a different course, as in my opinion, everything has been adduced on both sides that is necessary to a full understanding of the case, it having been prolonged beyond reason already.

In March last the Mexican Commissioner informed me verbally that he was satisfied that the Island belonged to the United States and he would make no contention for it, but would not sign the decision until a conclusion was reached in the Chamizal Case.

In the Journal of June 25th (See copy enclosed marked “F”) he again admits an informal decision but the Mexican Consulting Engineer refused to sign a joint report which he has since signed, and which was submitted to the Joint Commission at its session on the 4th instant (See enclose "D", page 2).

Señor Ibarrola is still in Mexico and I have no knowledge that the difficulties between himself and Mr. Osorno have been terminated save that in your telegram of the 4th instant.

I regret to be compelled to communicate such disagreeable information, but deem it my duty to do so.

I have the honor to be,

Very respectfully your obedient servant,

ANSON MILLS

Colonel 3rd Cavalry, U. S. A., Commissioner.

[Inclosure.]
"A"

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, July 1896

The Joint Commission met at the Office of the Commissioner for

at

Thereupon the Mexican Commissioner stated that he had read with proper attention the reply presented by the Commissioner for

a [The history of this application on the part of the Mexican Commissioner to reopen the Chamizal case is given in a letter of the United States Commissioner to the Secretary of State of August 8th, 1896 (supra, page 321). The translation here printed was evidently hastily made in order to enable the United States Commissioner to respond without delay. (See letter of United States Commissioner to the Mexican Commissioner dated August 4th, 1896, page 340 infra.) The translation is obviously inartistic, but seems perfectly intelligible and entirely sufficient for all practical purposes, and is reproduced literatim from the archives of the Department of State, suggested emendations being indicated by brackets and parentheses. The Spanish text of the Mexican Commissioner's communication has not been found as yet, and further search of the archives of the Department of State and of the United States Section of the International Boundary Commission is being made. If not found in the United States archives it can doubtless be supplied from the Mexican archives.-Agent's note.]

the United States and considered it absolutely indispensable that some very important rectifications and explanations [elucidations] be placed on record, to the end that the persons who should have to decide later on the case El Chamizal may not lack of any of the necessary data for the rendering of a just and equitable decision in favor of the claim presented by the Government of Mexico.

The observations and explanations [elucidations]" to which he calls special attention and that may serve as synthesis, and which for the sake of clearness and conciseness are presented here by the Mexican Commissioner in the form of notes and citing the respective pages of the journal [acta] comprising the rejoinder of the American Commissioner are:

No. I. Page 2. The American Commissioner is of opinion. that in order to pass upon this case properly, it ought to be withdrawn from the bearings of international law and be decided only in conformity with Articles 1 and 2 of the Convention of 1884 entered upon between Mexico and the United States.This has been done by the Mexican Commissioner in his conclusions, the more so as he stated therein that Articles 1 and 2 of said Convention are the exact expression of the doctrine upheld by Mr Andrés Bello and Mr José Maiá Pando and accepted by Attorney General Cushing.-But what could not but surprise the Mexican Commissioner is that the American Commissioner should have mutilated the text of Article 2 suppressing the following words that have special bearing on this case; to wit: "Any other change occasioned by the force of the current."-The object in said intentional mutilation, [being] for the purpose of sustaining a sophistry.

No. 2 Page 4.-On account, no doubt, to that the Commissioner for the United States feels the absurdity of continuing to hold that the change effected by the river during a period of a few years, from 1864 to 1868 and only during the floods, and with such force that it destroyed houses and cultivated fields at "El Chamizal", was due to a slow and gradual corrosion, does he make now the extraordinary [strange] assertion that where the treaty says clearly, in Spanish, corrosion, it must be understood as erosion and that corrosion and erosion are not synonimous in English. Thus, Mr Mills tacitly affirms that were the word of the Treaty

a [Brackets in original translation.-Agent's note.]

that is to serve as guide the word corrosion, it could not be sustained any longer that the corrosion had been slow and gradual; but that, since it is erosion, a synonym of corrosion, such erosion could have been slow and gradual, although the river dries up during a part of the year and notwithstanding the destructive force of the floods [avenidas]. Not much effort has the Mexican Commissioner to exercise, in order to prove that the word corrosion, is the only one existing in Spanish, the only one used in the Mexican text of the Convention of 1884, and the legal one in deciding this case. By adding to the above the fact that Webster-an authority superior to Col. Mills as regards to the English language-gives erosion as synonym of corrosion, precisely, the objection presented by the Commissioner for the United States falls to the ground.a

The last edition of the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy which I have before me, on its Page 444 gives the word "erogatorio” and "erotema" as the next one following thereto; and, consequently, there is no such word as "erosion," in Spanish. If, notwithstanding the above, the signers had wished to use the word erosion in the geological sense used by Mr Mills, and there being no equivalent for same, in Spanish, the spanish word corrosion would have been employed with the english one (erosion) in parenthesis, or in precisely the same manner as the english word jetties that is underlined in Article 3 of said Convention of 1884. Let us now see what Webster's Dictionary says in its edition of 1895 on page 507, column 3: “Erosion. 1.—The act or operation of eroding or eating away.-2. The state of being eaten away, corrosion, canker." This is all that said lexicon gives as to the word erosion, and Mr Mills will thereby see that, according to the indisputable authority of Webster, erosion is certainly [a] synonym of corrosion and has no special geological acceptation; for which reason it is to be presumed that the American Commissioner has not found any one example that he wished to meet, as stated in his textual words ("As I can not find any instance of the use of corrosion in a geological sense”)."—

Resuming: Ist. The legal text written in Spanish, the only one with obligatory force upon Mexico, has the word "corrosion" and not "erosion".-2d. In English, erosion is synonym of corrosion.-3d.-All the arguments of Mr Mills tend to prove that

a [As regards the equivalence of the Spanish corrosion and the English erosion as used in the treaty see Mr. Romero to Mr. Bayard February 27, 1889 (infra, p. 755), and Mr. Bayard's reply of March 1, 1889 (infra, p. 757).—Agent's note.]

b [Parentheses in original translation.-Agent's note.]