Peru and Chile 
 
 THE QUESTION OF TARAPACA 
 
 ■■/■ } 
 
 b ' 
 
 Memorial Address 
 
 to 
 President Harding 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 1922
 
 
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESS TO 
 
 PRESIDENT HARDING 
 
 BY 
 
 THE NATIVES OF TARAPACA
 
 F 
 3&f7. 3
 
 To His Excellency the President of the United 
 States of America: 
 
 The undersigned Peruvian citizens, born in the Depart- 
 ment of Tarapaca, which is today under the control of Chile, 
 appear before your Excellency to respectfully set forth the 
 following: 
 
 We have no doubt that, in the conferences which at your 
 Excellency's initiative are soon to be held in Washington for 
 the purpose of settling the differences pending between Peru 
 and Chile since the peace of 1883, the Peruvian Government 
 will exact of that of Chile the devolution of the Department 
 of Tarapaca; and with the live earnest desire that the Peru- 
 vian demand be complied with and we the natives of Tarapaca 
 restored to the Peruvian home which we have never re- 
 nounced, nor shall ever be able to renounce, by this communi- 
 cation manifest our decided and unbreakable will cf reestab- 
 lishing our union with the Peruvian Motherland and hereto 
 annex a brief containing the reasons which we have for believ- 
 ing our decision just. All to the end of lending our most ve- 
 hement cooperation and support to the demand of the Peru- 
 vian Government. 
 
 In the brief just mentioned we have undertaken to prove 
 and believe to have proved : 
 
 First. That the cession of Tarapaca contained in the treaty 
 of peace of 1883 between Peru and Chile was made not only 
 without consulting the will of its inhabitants but against their 
 will which they of their own initiative and notwithstanding 
 the pressure of the Chilean arms expressed in the protest 
 which they then made and which is annexed to the aforemen- 
 tioned brief. 
 
 Second. That the natives of Tarapaca as well as the other 
 Peruvians defended our territory as far as it was humanly 
 possible, and were conquered only because, as all those who 
 have studied the war of 1879-1883, and especially the Chil- 
 eans themselves, acknowledge, victory was certain for the
 
 belligerent which should have the control of the sea which 
 is the only means of communication and on which Chile's 
 superiority was from the beginning unquestionable; so that in 
 spite of the fruitless sacrifice of Peru's navy men the weak 
 Peruvian navy had practically disappeared at the end of six 
 months of hostilities, and the extensive Peruvian coast could 
 be attacked with impunity whence it was most convenient 
 for the invader. 
 
 Third. That Tarapaca not having been an object of the 
 dispute which caused the war, the peace with which the latter 
 ended cannot serve as a title to appropriate it under and con- 
 sequently the expropriation of this Peruvian Department by 
 Chile is a simple despoliation by force and arms which does 
 not close the war but prepares another. 
 
 Fourth. That notwithstanding the foregoing, and in spite 
 of the careful concealment made by Chile of its true aims in 
 the beginning, it is today indubitable that those aims were 
 always those of despoiling Peru of the territory of Tarapaca 
 to consummate the monopoly of the saltpetre and of the 
 guano of which it had already despoiled Bolivia, and that 
 for this reason the war had no admissible and confessable aim 
 in the light of the international law of South America. 
 
 Fifth. That in the case contemplated in the next preced- 
 ing paragraph the belligerent which wins the war has none 
 of the rights which the laws of war grant to the winner and 
 the loser has the right of recovering that which it has lost as 
 soon as the pressure of force cease. 
 
 Sixth. That the right to which the next two preceding 
 paragraphs refer would be lost to Peru if in the exercise of 
 full liberty and under the flag of that great country, it should 
 settle its affairs with Chile without including among them 
 that of Tarapaca, and we the natives of Tarapaca would lose 
 forever the never-abandoned hope of being restored to the 
 Peruvian Motherland.
 
 Seventh. That the saltpetre and the guano of Tarapaca 
 are not a gift made by nature to the Peruvians, but the 
 necessary compensation of the sterility of the Peruvian coast 
 which can be cultivated, although never totally, only by 
 means of costly irrigations whereas the long coast of Chile is 
 all irrigated by rain. So that the guano and the saltpetre, 
 which ought to remedy or make up for the sterility of the 
 Peruvian coast serve Chile only to constitute what is in fact 
 a most abundant fund of war, of diplomacy and of propaganda 
 with which it has destroyed the equilibrium of the South 
 Pacific, has sowed perpetual intranquility in the South Amer- 
 ican continent and constantly causes discredit and ruin to 
 those who resist or refuse support to its imperialistic plans. 
 
 Eighth. That Chile has violated the treaty of peace which 
 contains the cession of Tarapaca in what was indispensable 
 condition of its execution by Peru and has caused the caducity 
 of said treaty and of the cession of Tarapaca even supposing 
 that the latter should have been valid originally. 
 
 Ninth. Finally, that if Tarapaca should remain definitively 
 annexed to Chile, Bolivia would lose forever the supreme 
 hope of having an outlet to the sea because the realization of 
 that hope is conceivable only through one of the ports to the 
 south of Tarapaca and to the north of Chile as it was, and 
 would result consequently in a gap in the present Chilean 
 territory which would be inadmissible for Chile. It is clear, 
 therefore, that the compressed and unrestrainable aspirations 
 of Bolivia would break their dikes to reach the sea sometime, 
 and that the conference which with such wholesome inten- 
 tions your Excellency has promoted would leave in the ground 
 the seed of a new South American conflagration. 
 
 Aware of the decisive influence which your Excellency's 
 ideas are bound to have in the decisions which the conference 
 adopt, we very respectfully fervently invoke the high spirit 
 of benevolence and of justice which has guided your Excel-
 
 lency in the present occasion, and your natural earnest desire 
 that peace be definitively established in the South American 
 continent that you may deign lend attention to the annexed 
 brief and provide whatever you may deem necessary in order 
 that the reasons which it contains be duly appreciated at the 
 conference which is the cause of it. 
 
 Lima, April 6, 1922. 
 
 The signatures of the natives 
 of Tarapaca follow.
 
 BRIEF ON THE JUSTICE AND CONVENIENCE OF 
 THE DEVOLUTION TO PERU OF THE DEPART- 
 MENT OF TARAPACA WHICH APPEARS CEDED 
 TO CHILE BY THE TREATY OF PEACE OF OC- 
 TOBER 20th, 1883. 
 
 I. The Department of Tarapaca which with its beds of salt- 
 petre and of guano constitutes an emporium of wealth was 
 ceded by Peru to Chile, the opinion of its inhabitants not 
 having been in any way consulted, by the treaty of peace of 
 October 20th, 1883. The inhabitants of Tarapaca at that 
 time numbered forty- two thousand and two (42,002) accord- 
 ing to the official census of Peru of 1876. Of them only 
 two thousand were foreigners. They, far from being con- 
 sulted, spontaneously made the protest a copy of which is 
 annexed hereto. 
 
 In the European continent, the change of nationality of a 
 populated country, although populated by a small number of 
 inhabitants as all the countries of South America, without 
 consulting the opinion of its inhabitants, would have been a 
 scandal. But in South America where the nationality of a 
 piece of territory has for the first time been seen to change, 
 the infraction of the then and now most common and ac- 
 cepted rules in the civilized world set a precedent which it 
 is necessary to erase from the annals of our international law. 
 
 After the cession, we, the natives of Tarapaca, have been 
 treated in the land of our birth as the natives of Tacna and of 
 Arica have been in theirs and we have finally been expelled 
 also or driven away as they have been. 
 
 The grave fact of our not having been consulted does not 
 need proofs of any kind. The inhabitants of Tarapaca deny 
 that they were consulted and therefore it is in no case up to
 
 them to furnish proof but it is up to whomsoever should af- 
 firm the contrary to produce the respective proof and such 
 proof has neither been offered nor mentioned by anyone. 
 
 II. The inhabitants of Tarapaca, prior to protesting, de- 
 fended their own territory and the national territory as did 
 all the inhabitants of Peru, and it seems opportune to mani- 
 fest on this occasion why, in spite of their efforts, and of those 
 of all the inhabitants of the country, the war was lost and 
 the dismemberment of Peru consummated by Chile. 
 
 Among the communities of the every extensive coast of 
 Peru there was not at the time of the war with Chile, and 
 there is not today, any means of communication other than 
 the sea; so that the belligerent which dominated the sea had 
 the victory assured. And that belligerent was Chile which 
 prepared the despoliation of the Bolivian desert of Atacama 
 and the Peruvian Department of Tarapaca since the year 
 1842 when the saltpetre and the guano riches of the former 
 were discovered. 
 
 Many volumes might be filled with official Chilean docu- 
 ments and with publications of the Chilean press which evi- 
 dence the unanimous view in that country, as well as the 
 view of Peru, and in general of all those who have studied 
 the problem, to prove that on the west coast of South America 
 domination of the sea means victory. We shall limit our- 
 selves to a few citations. 
 
 Supposing the capture of the Huascar, the last ship of rela- 
 tive importance which Peru had, Santa Maria (President of 
 the Chilean Council of Ministers — and later of the Republic) 
 wrote to Sotomayor, Chief of Staff of the Chilean army, the 
 following : 
 
 "August 21, 1880. The disappearance of this ship 
 would permit us to move our army immediately and 
 then I would be of opinion — think it over well — that 
 we should direct our expedition on Lima and not on
 
 Tarapaca. The moral effect which the capture of 
 Lima would produce after the annihilation of the 
 Peruvian maritime forces would be immense. You 
 will see by this that I change my former manner of 
 thinking but this change has its basis in that I con- 
 sider the Peruvian navy entirely overwhelmed." 
 Bulnes, "Guerra del Pacifico," Vol. 1, P. 508. 
 
 Bulnes, at page 458, Vol. I, referring to a resolution of 
 the Council of War to move on Arica, writes : 
 
 "A great event modified the resolution of the Coun- 
 cil of War: the capture of the Huascar which took 
 place on the 8th of this month, and which by itself 
 dispelled all the doubts . . . ." 
 
 At page 501 he adds the following: 
 
 "The capture of the Huascar awakened immense 
 interest in the country. The public instinct under- 
 stood the enormous importance of opening the doors 
 of Peru to the terrestrial invasion which would decide 
 the contest . . . ." 
 
 And he adds at page 504: 
 
 "In Peru the impression was much greater; first of 
 sorrow for the loss of its most beloved belonging. 
 Grau was its pride; the Huascar its glory! Then of 
 consternation at the impending invasion. The whole 
 coast was left at the mercy of the enemy. It could 
 disembark wheresoever it should wish . . . ." 
 
 As regards the navies of Peru and of Chile, the following 
 comparative statements concerning them at the time of the 
 declaration of the war which appear as much in the Peruvian 
 as in the Chilean histories prove the complete superiority of 
 Chile's navy and the impossibility of a definitive victory on 
 the sea for Peru.
 
 TONNAGE OF THE NAVIES 
 
 Peru 
 
 Independencia 2004 
 
 Huascar 1130 
 
 Mancon 1034 
 
 Atahualpa 1034 
 
 Union 1150 
 
 Pilcomayo 600 
 
 6952 
 
 Chile 
 
 Cockrane 2032 
 
 Blanco 2032 
 
 Ohiggins 1101 
 
 Chacabuco 1101 
 
 Abatao 1051 
 
 Esmeralda 854 
 
 Magallanes 772 
 
 Covadonga 412 
 
 9353 
 
 SPEED AND ARMOUR OF THEIR SHIPS 
 
 Manco 
 
 4 mi., 10 in. 
 
 Atahualpa 
 
 Independencia,} n m j ^ in B1 
 Huascar 
 
 Cockrane, 13 mi., 13 in. 
 13 mi. 13 in. 
 
 anco, 
 
 ARMAMENT OF THEIR SHIPS 
 
 Peru Grooved Cannon 
 
 Chile 
 
 2 
 
 < 250 
 
 12 
 
 2 
 
 ' 150 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 ' 115 
 
 7 
 
 26 
 
 ' 70 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 ' 64 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 < 40 
 
 8 
 
 4 
 
 ' 32 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 < 30 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 ' 20 
 
 8 
 
 4 
 
 < 12 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 < 9 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 < 6 
 
 6 
 
 DATE OF CONSTRUCTION OF THEIR SHIPS 
 
 Independencia 
 Huascar 
 Manco 
 Atahualpa 
 
 1864 
 
 1874 
 
 Cockrane 
 Blanco 
 Ohiggins 
 Chacabuco 
 Biblioteca del Mercurio Peruano 
 Documentos Esenciales del Debate Peruano Chileno" 
 published by the Comite Patriotico Peruano, 
 Series A.— Vol. 2, Pp. 67 and 68. 
 
 10
 
 III. The treaty of peace of October 20th, 1883, in its 
 second article, there being no prior nor subsequent explana- 
 tion of or reference to the subject matter of this article, reads 
 as follows: 
 
 "Article 2. The Republic of Peru cedes to the Re- 
 public of Chile, perpetually and unconditionally, the 
 territory of the literal province of Tarapaca, the 
 boundaries of which are: on the north, the ravine and 
 river Camarones; en the south the ravine and river 
 Loa; on the east, the Republic of Bolivia and on the 
 west the Pacific Ocean." 
 
 When Chile declared war on Peru on the 5th of April, 
 1879, Minister Fierro alleged, in his manifesto to the neutral 
 powers, as the only cause of the war the execution by Peru 
 and Bolivia of the secret treaty of 1873, basing his allegation 
 on the fact that, Bolivia having declared war on Chile be- 
 cause Chile (without having declared it as it was its duty 
 to do) had occupied Bolivian territory, Peru being the ally 
 of Bolivia ought to be reputed an enemy of Chile also and 
 besides disloyal to Chile because of having kept the treaty 
 secret while appearing as a neutral and friend of Chile and 
 as a mediator between it and Bolivia. But the manifesto 
 does not contain a word about Tarapaca although it does not 
 fail to express hateful sentiments against Peru on account of 
 certain internal administration measures which the latter 
 took in the saltpetre fields of that territory and which Chile 
 believed prejudicial to Chilean interests the importance of 
 which the minister exaggerated immeasureably. 
 
 War is certainly, or was until the last European conflict, a 
 licit manner of determining disputes between nations in the 
 absence of any other means of doing so. But war has never 
 been considered, at least among Christian people, during 
 modern times and above all in America, as a means of appro- 
 priating territories and even property of any other kind not 
 
 11
 
 related to the causes of the war itself. So that if a territory 
 which was never in dispute, and especially if it contains 
 riches as stupendous as does Tarapaca, is ceded, such cession 
 has no legitimate cause ; it is simply a despoliation by force 
 and arms which the vanquished consent to because he cannot 
 repel the force which weighs down upon him. And as no 
 despoliation, and especially those effected by force, gives title 
 to the things thus taken, it seems evident that Chile has no 
 title to the province of Tarapaca. Consequently Peru has 
 an indisputable title to that province and may exercise it by 
 force whenever it be strong enough to defeat Chile or by 
 means of pacific action founded on reason and on mutual 
 convenience to which the actual tendencies of humanity which 
 the Government of that great Republic so brilliantly personi- 
 fies give a power which they did not formerly have. 
 
 War taking the place of a tribunal of last resort to deter- 
 mine to whom belongs the object of a dispute between two 
 or more states is already sufficiently barbarous and horrible 
 to suppose that its effects may be extended to objects which 
 had no relation with it, thus retrograding to the times when 
 the conqueror was the owner of all that belonged to the con- 
 quered including honor, liberty and life. 
 
 Even in Europe composed of different races which came 
 into contact with each other through invasion and war, whose 
 organization was originally founded on rules of individual and 
 absolute predominance and whose territories are far from be- 
 ing sufficiently extensive not to inspire covetousness, the ap- 
 propriation of another's property among nations may be con- 
 sidered definitely abolished. 
 
 The cession of Alsace and Lorraine offers in Europe the 
 last example of the past barbarousness and it is certain that 
 the world would not permit today that such an example should 
 be repeated nor would it have been possible to found a League 
 of Nations if it should subsist. 
 
 12
 
 How much more must it be so in South America where the 
 states were born to the independent life under the ideas of the 
 Christian civilization of the ninteenth century. 
 
 There are further in the case of Tarapaca compared with 
 that of Alsace and Lorraine these differences which favor 
 Peru: Alsace and Lorraine once belonged to the Germanic 
 community, Chile certainly was once a dependency of Peru 
 but Peru was never part of Chile. The two states were not 
 even boundary neighbors. Between the river Loa, the south- 
 ern boundary of Peru and of the Department of Tarapaca, 
 and the river Paposo, northern boundary of Chile, there is 
 the entire Bolivian desert enclosed by its sea and its moun- 
 tains, so that Chile has had to take a leap of eighty leagues to 
 place its claw on the coveted Peruvian prey, a prey which is 
 not only a territory susceptible of being made productive 
 with the money and work of the conqueror but a treasure in 
 itself immense, indispensable for Peru as we shall hereinafter 
 show and with which Chile passed instantaneously, the only 
 example in history, from the most modest sphere to the most 
 ostentatious opulence. 
 
 The Chileans also know what they were doing when, while 
 directing their arms on Tarapaca in the year 1879, they were 
 not content with concealing their purposes but protested once 
 and again that they were not nor could be those of conquest. 
 The same manifesto of Minister Fierro as to the justificative 
 causes of the war to which we have referred proves this affir- 
 mation. 
 
 "In no emergency," says the Minister, "was it possible to 
 anticipate that Chile or any other nation could threaten the 
 integrity of the Bolivian territory or the never-disputed 
 sovereignty of Peru within its acknowledged boundaries." 
 By this Chile wished to express the thought that the conquest 
 (which was precisely what it was performing) was, in its 
 opinion a thing so excessively monstrous that no one could 
 
 13
 
 imagine it and that it could not therefore have been the cause 
 of the treaty of alliance of 1873 between Peru and Bolivia. 
 Because Chile was trembling at the idea of an intervention 
 by the United States or by Europe and wished to prevent it 
 with the boldest protests against the conquest to which never- 
 theless it rapidly was tending. 
 
 The idea expressed by the Chilean Minister in the fore- 
 going quotation explains it all. Peru and Bolivia seeing in 
 the reality of the invasions of the Bolivian desert the begin- 
 ning of the conquest were not sufficiently alarmed and lim- 
 ited themselves to a semi-platonic alliance which was not even 
 completed with the projected concurrence of the Argentine 
 Republic and which was in fact abandoned, as all other de- 
 fense was forgotten, when Chile apparently settled with 
 Bolivia by means of the boundary treaty of 1874 by which 
 nothing better was accomplished than by that of 1866 whence 
 the great dispute of those times had originated, and which 
 furnished immediate pretext for the invasion of the entire 
 Bolivian desert. 
 
 This idea explains also that all the other states of America 
 should not have understood the situation in time to check 
 the belligerent action of Chile in its inception and should 
 have let things advance until Chile took the saltpetre and 
 guano deposits of Tarapaca, immediately undertook the ex- 
 ploitation of them and acquired powerful elements of re- 
 sistance against the intervention of any state of South 
 America. 
 
 It is also necessary to state here how this Republic so young 
 and so poor could do things so surprising and so bold with a 
 method and perserverance which are conceivable only under 
 the direction of an intelligence and an arm provided with the 
 most absolute power. 
 
 But the fact is that it is an oligarchy, compact and closed, 
 that governs in Chile under the forms of a democratic re- 
 
 14
 
 public, and has always directed its interior and exterior 
 policy, doing so above all for the personal benefit of its mem- 
 bers and generally with disregard of the inferior races of 
 semi-civilized rapacious and sanguinary Indians and half- 
 breeds which make up the great mass of its population. 
 
 The above stated circumstance is sufficient to render the 
 Chilean Republic a machinery of easy and energetic move- 
 ments in the service of far-reaching, firm and constant pur- 
 poses. It is as dangerous in South America as was the Kai- 
 ser's Germany in Europe and even much more dangerous: 
 First, because it is sufficiently separated from the rest of the 
 world to withhold from the latter's eyes, at least in the be- 
 ginning, the preparation and execution of its purposes. Sec- 
 ond, because the dominant caste being separated from the 
 lower masses the former looks upon the blood of the latter 
 with less attachment and solicitude, and because the char- 
 acter of the lower masses makes them very appropriate for 
 the war of destruction and very easy to control at the expense 
 of the enemy by permitting them to satisfy their brutal in- 
 stincts. The excesses of all kinds committed against the 
 defenseless Peru after the disappearance of its navy are un- 
 equivocal proof of what we have just expressed no less than 
 the persistence in the purpose of the upper classes regarding 
 the saltpetre and guano of Bolivia and of Peru. This leads 
 us to the demonstration that in spite of Minister Fierro's 
 manifesto it was the riches of Tarapaca that caused the war 
 against Peru. 
 
 IV. When President Bulnes, acquainted with the discov- 
 ery of guano and saltpetre to the north of the twenty-fourth 
 degree where Bolivia's ownership of the desert was unques- 
 tionable, proposed to the Chilean Congress the adoption of a 
 law which fixed the northern boundary of Chile at the twenty- 
 third degree, advancing towards the north more than two 
 geographical degrees above the river Paposo up to that time 
 
 15
 
 the unquestionable boundary of Chile acknowledged as such 
 in its Constitution, Congress adopted that law without dis- 
 cussion and unanimously, that law which, applied by the 
 Chilean government with care, cunning and perseverance 
 never before seen, produced in the end the catastrophe of 1879 
 which annihilated the economic forces of Peru, deprived 
 Bolivia of its sea coast and converted Chile from the poorest 
 nation of the South Pacific into the wealthiest of the republics 
 of that region. 
 
 Don Gonzalo Bulnes, son of the Chilean President of 1842, 
 and historian of the War of the Pacific relates as follows the 
 remotest origin of the terrible drama: 
 
 "The new republics adopted as a common basis for 
 the demarcation of their boundaries the administrative 
 boundary which they had at the moment of their 
 separation from Spain. This was called the 'uti pos- 
 sidetis of 1810' and was thought of largely to prevent 
 European nations from pretending to set foot on 
 America alleging that between the territory of one 
 nation and that of another there were vacant lands 
 subject to occupation as res nullius." 
 
 "The uti possidetis of 1810 was the juridical be- 
 ginning of the territorial demarcation among the 
 American states." • 
 
 "Bulnes* government has the merit of having en- 
 deavored to establish the boundaries of the republic 
 on the north and south before any of the other govern- 
 ments of America endeavored to establish theirs, thus 
 preparing with rare foresight for the Chilean race of 
 the future a territory adequate for its ambitions of 
 work and of expansion." 
 
 "Within one year, between 1842 and 1843, he fixed 
 the northern boundary of the country at the Mejil- 
 lones parallel, and on the south at the Strait of Magel- 
 lan founding a colony which was then named Fuerte 
 Bulnes today Punta Arenas." 
 
 "This book is not concerned with what regards the 
 Strait. It is concerned only with that which refers 
 
 16
 
 to the northern domain up to Mejillones because of 
 its having been the starting point of the boundary dis- 
 pute between Chile and Bolivia, the seed of the bloody 
 and prolonged struggle which I propose to narrate." 
 
 "Great deposits of guano were discovered in Peru 
 in 1842 and, although the enormous importance which 
 this fertilizer came to acquire as regards the public 
 wealth of this country could not then be foreseen, 
 sufficient was known to appreciate it as a source of fis- 
 cal wealth. The government of Chile sent a com- 
 mission to explore the coasts of the northern part of 
 the country up to the Mejillones parallel for the pur- 
 pose of ascertaining whether or not similar deposits 
 existed on them. The report was not very favorable. 
 The guano found was neither abundant nor of high 
 quality. Bulnes nevertheless took that examination 
 as a basis to send a message to Congress proposing to 
 it a project of law which declared the guano deposits 
 situated to the south of the twenty-third parallel the 
 property of the republic by reason of their being within 
 the boundaries of its territory." 
 "The message read as follows :" 
 "Fellow citizens of the Senate and of the Chamber 
 of Deputies:" 
 
 "The usefulness of the substance called guano which 
 since time immemorial is used as a fertilizer in the cul- 
 tivation of the soil on the coast of Peru being ac- 
 knowledged in Europe, I considered it necessary to 
 send an exploring commission to examine the coast 
 comprised between the port of Coquimbo and the bluff 
 of Mejillones for the purpose of finding out whether 
 or not any guano deposits existed within the territory 
 of the republic the exploitation of which might supply 
 a new source of income to the public treasury, and, 
 although the result of the expedition did not fully 
 meet the hopes which had been conceived, guano was 
 nevertheless found, in more or less abundant quanti- 
 ties according to the nature of the places at which 
 these deposits are found, at sixteen points of the coast 
 and neighboring islands, from 29'35" to 23'6" south 
 latitude." 
 
 17
 
 "Far from presuming, after the examination made 
 that the Chilean guano deposits may have the import- 
 ance attributed to those of Peru, I am inclined to be- 
 lieve that the return that may be derived from them 
 shall be comparatively small but this would not excuse 
 that their exploitation should be permitted to be free 
 in favor of foreign commerce depriving the national 
 treasury of a resource which, without encumbrance on 
 the people, would serve as a subsidiary fund to attend 
 to so many objects of common utility which need ef- 
 ficient protection." 
 
 "This important document carries the signatures of 
 President Don Manuel Bulnes and of the Secretary of 
 the Treasury (Ministro de Hacienda) Don Manuel 
 Renjifo." 
 
 "Both Chambers approved unanimously that which 
 this message indicated and the project was promul- 
 gated as law in October 1842. That the northern 
 boundary of the republic was the Bay of Mejillones 
 was sanctioned by the Executive and by Congress un- 
 der the form of an economic measure." Bulnes, 
 "Guerra del Pacifico" Vol. I, Pages 12, 13, 14. 
 
 The foregoing proves that Chile since the year 1842 had 
 the purpose of enriching itself by the appropriation of the 
 guano and saltpetre producing territories and that to put it 
 into practice it did not retreat before the unequivocal provi- 
 sions of its constitution which fixed its boundary precisely at 
 the southern beginning of those territories nor before the con- 
 flict with Bolivia which the law of the year above mentioned 
 could create and in fact did create. The foregoing also 
 proves that with the indubitable object of concealing the 
 transcendence of that law it was proposed to the Chambers 
 as a simple economic measure and adopted by them as such 
 without discussion that we know of and unanimously. 
 
 This and the fact that Chile's activities regarding the salt- 
 petres and guanos did not cease until it obtained the absolute 
 domination of them all, Bolivian as well as Peruvian, cannot
 
 leave doubt in any impartial mind that the cause of the war 
 was the Chilean purpose of appropriating the province of 
 Tarapaca and that the manifesto of Minister Fierro, in so far 
 as it states that the cause of the war was the secret treaty of 
 alliance between Bolivia and Peru executed in 1873, was only 
 a recourse resorted to by the public men of Chile in the 
 absence of all serious pretext for carrying it on at the moment 
 when they thought that the most propitious occasion presented 
 itself for accomplishing the long incubated project of Presi- 
 dent of Bulnes of the year 1842. 
 
 It would be very long and foreign to the purpose of this 
 document to demonstrate that the alliance between Peru and 
 Bolivia of 1873 cannot be the cause of the war declared by 
 Chile on the former of these two countries. It is sufficient 
 for our purpose to demonstrate in a direct manner that it was 
 the saltpetre of Tarapaca that was the only cause which 
 induced Chile to declare this war, and in the event that any- 
 one should believe that what has heretofore been stated is not 
 sufficient for that purpose, we add the following the proba- 
 tory force of which is beyond discussion : 
 
 ''The war with Bolivia was for this reason a simple 
 question of time from the time when the explorer 
 Cangalla found the first silver ore in the hills of Cara- 
 coles (of the desert of Atacama), as the war with 
 Peru would have to be inevitable and analogous from 
 the time when the railroad and saltpetre excavation 
 attracted to the territory of that republic, as a human 
 avalanche, an active, vigorous and intelligent race 
 which was to meet face to face an other race lazy, 
 soft and demoralized by the climate and by idleness." 
 Vicuna Mackena "Campafia de Tarapaca" P. 33. 
 
 Balmaceda, Secretary of State, in the year 1882 and later 
 president of Chile, said in the Chamber of Deputies: 
 
 "Historical, legendary, geographical and industrial 
 reasons made it necessary to carry the war on to its last 
 
 19
 
 extreme. On the Pacific coast of South America 
 there are but two centres of action and progress : Lima 
 and Callao: Santiago and Valparaiso. It is necessary 
 that one of these centres succumb in order that the 
 other may rise. For our part we need Tarapaca as a 
 source of wealth and Arica as an advanced point on 
 the coast." 
 
 Paz Soldan Carlos, "La cuestion de Tacna v 
 Arica," P. 28. 
 
 In a circular to the diplomatic agents of Chile, Balmaceda 
 was still more explicit: 
 
 "The saltpetre territory of Antofagasta and the 
 saltpetre territory of Tarapaca were the real and di- 
 rect cause of the war. To return to the enemy the 
 cause itself of the war after our triumphs and after the 
 occupation of those territories would have been an 
 unjustifiable imprevision and an absolute lack of the 
 knowledge which matters of state suppose." Ibidem, 
 Page 29. 
 
 Vial Solar referring to the terms of the peace says: 
 
 "In clearer terms and according to this criterion, 
 Peru submitting to the law of the situation ought 
 to deliver to Chile those portions of territory 
 which had been the true and efficient cause of the 
 war and to pay besides an indemnity in money 
 which would prevent for long years the nourish- 
 ment of illusions of revenge by its restless poli- 
 ticians." 
 
 VJal Solar, "Paginas Diplomaticas" P. 7. 
 
 The following is copied from the Biblioteca del Mercurio 
 Peruano's "Documentos Esenciales del Debate Peruano- 
 Chileno" Series A, Vol. 2: 
 
 "D. 33. — The conquest confessed in the Chilean 
 Chamber." 
 
 "Mr. Arteaga A. (don D.) requests the privilege 
 of speaking for the purpose of proposing to the 
 
 20
 
 Chamber a project of law in his opinion very well 
 founded and which counts with the approval of the 
 entire country." 
 
 "Our territory has extended to the seventeenth 
 degree thanks to the brave effort of our valiant 
 army." 
 
 "Our poor 'rotos' have gone to take possession 
 of that territory to which they have given life with 
 their arms and with their efforts at the same time 
 that our capitalists have developed industry there." 
 
 "In view of this and other considerations he 
 proposes the following:" 
 
 "Project of resolution. — The Chamber of Depu- 
 ties would see with pleasure that His Excellency the 
 President of the republic should submit to Congress 
 a project of law to definitively incorporate in the 
 territory of the republic the regions CONQUERED 
 and occupied by the arms of Chile in the present 
 war, said regions remaining subject to the civil, 
 political and administrative legislation of Chile." 
 
 "Mr. Walker Martinez (don C.) believes the idea 
 proposed by Mr. Arteaga very acceptable and very 
 valiant and that it honors the country." 
 
 "The administrative and jurisdictional measures 
 would be settled by the indication of the honorable 
 deputy." 
 
 "Mr. Balmaceda (don J. M.) confesses that he 
 agrees with the honorable Mr. Arteaga on every- 
 thing that may refer to the RIGHT OF CON- 
 QUEST which aids Chile: but it seems to him that 
 this is not the opportune hour to proceed to the 
 declaration which His Excellency requests. For 
 that reason he will deny him his vote." 
 
 "(Session of the Chamber of Deputies of Chile 
 of the 5th of January, 1880)." 
 
 The events to which we have referred in connection with 
 the discovery of the guano and saltpetre in the Bolivian de- 
 sert ; the long controversy with Bolivia which ended in the 
 year 1866 when Chile wrested from an insane dictator of 
 Bolivia the treaty of that year and proposed to help him to 
 
 21
 
 conquer the southern provinces of Peru in exchange for the 
 whole desert of Atacama; the secret negotiations of Chile 
 for an alliance with Ecuador and against Peru its ally at the 
 time of the war against Spain; the treaty of 1874 which far 
 from remedying the faults of that of the year 1866 placed 
 new obstacles in Bolivia's way, and finally the futile pretexts 
 based on this treaty of 1874 which Chile alleged to take pos- 
 session of the entire desert of Atacama without declaration of 
 war and disregarding the arbitration agreed upon with Boli- 
 via, thus constituting itself by one step the boundary neigh- 
 bor of Peru and thereupon calling the latter country to ac- 
 count and declaring the war for the supposed offense of the 
 defensive alliance of the year 1873 with Bolivia entered into 
 to prevent the appropriation of the saltpetre of both by Chile, 
 this appropriation being precisely the result of that war which 
 the latter country imposed upon them: all this constitutes a 
 very logical association of links in the long chain of incidents 
 of all kinds brought about by Chile to make both ends meet, 
 these ends being the Chilean law of the year 1842 and the 
 despoliation of the saltpetre deposits of Peru and of Bolivia 
 in the war of 1879 to 1883. To this is added the most elo- 
 quent circumstance as regards Chilean psychology, that both 
 measures were unanimously approved by the Chilean Cham- 
 bers. 
 
 The condition which the Chilean Treasury had reached in 
 1879 as a result of its immeasurable war preparations did not 
 permit delay in the realization of the war enterprise which 
 the Chilean statesmen had in view and this determined the 
 outbreak in that year of the so long meditated war. 
 
 The obligations arising from the Chilean debt, which up 
 to the year 1842 had not been fulfilled with regularity, were 
 henceforth and until the declaration of war on Peru fulfilled 
 with noteworthy punctuality, not because Chile had the re- 
 sources for that purpose but because it had its aim fixed on 
 
 22
 
 the great enterprise which it had undertaken. Each time 
 that its resources were lacking and that there was danger 
 of the non-fulfillment of the obligations arising from a loan, 
 it negotiated another. 
 
 Finally the time arrived when it was not possible to con- 
 tinue securing loans for the purpose of performing the obliga- 
 tions arising from other loans, and this was undoubtedly one 
 of the capital reasons that caused the war to break out when 
 in any other country the result of checking it would have 
 been produced. But in Chile the war was the industry itself 
 and it was necessary to make it produce. 
 
 We copy from Bulnes, Vol. 1, P. 184. 
 
 "The situation of the treasury was extremely 
 grave, the country was undergoing a very grave 
 fiscal and particular crisis." 
 
 " Paper had been established during the preceding 
 year as compulsory currency under the form of in- 
 convertible bank bill and the weight of our money 
 was worth thirty pennies." 
 
 "The budget of the nation's expenses fluctuated 
 in the neighborhood of twenty-one million pesos 
 and the revenues did not reach more than seven- 
 teen million leaving a deficit equivalent to almost 
 twenty-five percent of the income which was liqui- 
 dated by means of loans. For the first time since 
 1843 when the fulfillment of the obligation arising 
 from the external debt became regular, in 1878 Chile 
 found itself in serious difficulties to effect the pay- 
 ment of interests in Europe. In 1877 the loan to 
 cover the budget amounted to five million pesos, 
 in 1878 to four million, and there was a new deficit 
 in the appropriations of the Secretary of the 
 Treasury (Ministro de Hacienda) of almost one 
 million pesos more." 
 
 At page 377 of the same volume: 
 
 "The General made the error of causing it to be 
 believed that everything was ready for the cam- 
 
 23
 
 paign when it was not. That error resulted from 
 his not having studied sufficiently the available 
 resources nor the preparations which were neces- 
 sary. Proceeding thus he encouraged illusions 
 which could not be realized and which produced a 
 disillusionment painful in proportion to the desire 
 of finishing an enterprise which was exhausting the 
 resources of the country. In this contrast of hopes 
 and disillusionments is found one of the causes of 
 the disagreement which existed between the Gov- 
 ernment and him." 
 
 At pages 450 and 451 of the same volume: 
 
 "The maintenance and payment of a large army 
 distributed throughout the country with a powerful 
 nucleus at a place unprovided with supplies such as 
 Antofagasta and the maintenance and payment of a 
 navy in action were greater than the economic 
 forces of the republic. The fiscal resources, 
 although invested with scrupulous economy became 
 insufficient to attend to the war." 
 
 "Matte, the Secretary of the Treasury (Ministro 
 de Hacienda), on whom falls the greater part of 
 the honor of this parsimonious investment of the 
 fiscal revenues, was terrified at the prospect of the 
 prolongation of the war, and it is probable that his 
 influence should have determined the change of 
 opinion which is observed in the Ministry during 
 the first fortnight of September when the navy was 
 ready to sail from Valparaiso. Matte expressed 
 himself thus: 
 
 "To Sotomayor; September 9. As the matter of 
 revenues is that which is most closely related to the 
 war, I wish to express to you my opinion of the 
 situation. As you know we have a fiscal issue of 
 twelve thousand million pesos already authorized. 
 The market circulation cannot demand a sum much 
 greater than that. When the last six millions be 
 exhausted it shall be necessary to resort to other 
 means different from those which we have hitherto 
 employed, means which will of course be infinitely 
 
 24
 
 more painful for the country. Hence the necessity 
 of giving the most vigorous impulse to the operations 
 of the war. In my judgment it is indispensable to 
 prepare with the greatest rapidity in all the ele- 
 ments of army mobilization in order to operate on 
 land immediately whether or not the navy obtain 
 the results which we all expect. I would not be so 
 concerned as to the rapidity with which it is 
 necessary to proceed if it were not that the country 
 has not the resources to sustain a prolonged war." 
 "September 26th. I have had, he said to him in 
 another letter, the pleasure of receiving your 
 esteemed letter in which you state that you share 
 actively the idea that agitates us all and especially 
 me, namely, that of finding a denouement as rapid 
 as happy. I say especially me because if we do 
 not soon arrive at the end we shall not have any 
 gold which is already gone, nor silver which has 
 already been put on the way, nor paper which is 
 about to be exhausted. 
 
 At page 452: 
 
 "Santa Maria thought in the same manner: 
 "September 19. Two words about our purposes 
 which without any discrepancy are your own. We 
 wish that the army be completely ready to move so 
 that, whether the Peruvian ships be beaten or 
 whether they conceal themselves and place them- 
 selves in a situation where they cannot be pursued, 
 our soldiers may be able to dash on Tarapaca." 
 
 At pages 505 and 506: 
 
 "The expeditionary army had embarked on 
 October 28th." 
 
 "This was a solemn day for the national patriot- 
 ism. The heart of three million Chileans vibrated 
 in unison with that chosen portion of them which 
 was going to cement the future of Chile on the 
 sacrifice and on the victory." 
 
 At page 521 we find Sotomayor's proclamation: 
 "You will return he said to them with the con- 
 sciousness, etc., of having opened a new era of 
 
 25
 
 national history placing the peace, the industry and 
 the prosperity of the Fatherland on broad and in- 
 superable basis." 
 
 At page 275: 
 
 "After the battle of Tarapaca the General in 
 Chief sent military detachments to several points 
 in the territory to gather up the arms of those 
 scattered and fugitive to prevent small groups of 
 armed men from forming which would obstruct the 
 work on the saltpetre deposits which were the 
 nation's main source of revenue for the continua- 
 tion of the war." 
 
 The straits of the Chilean treasury are an explanation of 
 the vehemence displayed by Chile to take possession of Tara- 
 paca. But they are not the only one nor tell of the hatred 
 and unnecessary cruelty with which the war was carried on. 
 The principal explanation lies in the individual interest 
 which a large number of important Chileans and especially 
 high public functionaries among whom there were legislators 
 and ministers had in the matter. We limit ourselves in this 
 •connection to transcribe the following note from page 87 of 
 the history of the war by the Peruvian writer Paz Soldan: 
 
 "We have before us the tenth Report of the Salt- 
 petres and Railway Company of Antofagasta 
 corresponding to the semester running from the 
 first of January to the first of June 1877." 
 
 "In it we find the following list of the share- 
 holders of said company inserted at page 25." 
 
 "The underlined names are those of Chilean 
 public men now in official positions." 
 
 "First Issue A." 
 
 "Mr. Jose Basterrica — Mrs. Mariana Brown de 
 Ossa — Mr. Evaristo del Campo — Mr. Maximo del 
 Campo — Enrique Cood — Augustin Edwards — Esco- 
 bar y Ca — Guillermo Gibbs y Ca — Eliodoro Gormaz — 
 Mauricio J. Garces — Ramon Guerrero — Jorje 2d 
 
 26
 
 Huneus — Jorje Hicks — Ambrosio Olives — Fran- 
 cisco Puelma — Federico Puelma — Luis Pereira — 
 Santiago Prado — Julian Riesco — M. Subercas- 
 seaux — Cornelio Saavedra (Secretary of War) 
 (Ministro de la Guerra) Rafael Sotomayor — Miguel 
 Jose Urmeneta — Francisco J. Vergara — Jose 
 Eugenio Vergara — Antonio Verax — Miguel A. 
 Varas — Santiago J. Velazquez — Julio Zegers (Secre- 
 tary of Justice) (Ministro dejusticia) — Enrique J. 
 Walker." 
 
 "Second Issue B." 
 
 "Antonio Domingo Bordes — Ernesto Decombe — 
 Escobar y Ca — Augustin Edwards — L. C. Gal- 
 lagher — Guillermo Gibbs y Ca — Eliodoro Gormaz — J. 
 D. Hunter — C. S. Miller — Luis Pereira — Uldericio 
 Prado — Valentin Saldias — Miguel Saldias — Fede- 
 rico Varela — Enrique J. Walker." 
 
 "It is a fact that Mr. Alejandro Fierro, Secretary 
 of State (Ministro de Relaciones Exteriores) was 
 one of the shareholders as is evidenced by the 
 following document published in the Official Daily 
 of Santiago:" 
 
 "SUMMONS:— In the suit by the sindic of the 
 Chacabuco de Caracoles against don Alejandro 
 Fierro to enforce the latter's liability resulting from 
 the assignment made by him of certain shares of 
 stock, action which is now before the judge of first 
 instance don Javier Arlegui Rodriguez, the Most 
 Illustrious Court of Appeals, second part, has on the 
 ninth instant provided as follows: the papers on 
 file having been seen: Don Alejandro Fierro being 
 absent from the country and don Gregorio Munoz 
 named his attorney in fact at pages 143, not having 
 appeared for him, serve a summons on the afore- 
 mentioned Gregorio Munoz by means of edicts 
 and advertisements in the daily newspapers and, 
 if he do not appear within ten days, communicate 
 whatever may be provided in this action to the 
 defender of absent parties as the representative of 
 don Alejandro Fierro. The decision of fifth instant 
 at pages 149 which has been appealed from is 
 
 27
 
 affirmed in so far as not contrary to this order. Sub- 
 stitute the paper and let this be returned. — Abalos — 
 Prats. — Gandarillas." 
 
 "This notice is given for the legal effects: it being 
 stated that the clerk of the case is don Jose Maria 
 Guzman." 
 
 "The foregoing document lends itself to very 
 grave and sad reflections." 
 
 "The Secretary of State (Ministro de Relaciones 
 Exteriores) who has pushed Chile into the war against 
 Peru and Bolivia to defend the miners of Anto- 
 fagasta and Caracoles is now found to be involved 
 in a liability action; he absents himself to carry out 
 a diplomatic mission in the Argentine Republic, 
 according to what he says, while the court officers 
 diligently search for him; his attorney in fact don 
 Gregorio Munoz conceals himself, edicts and 
 advertisements are published in the Chilean 
 dailies, including the Official Daily, and it is ordered 
 that whatever may be provided by the court be 
 communicated to the defender of absent parties in 
 view of the fact that neither don Alejandro Fierro 
 nor his attorney in fact appeared to defend the 
 action on the assignment." 
 
 "Behold here then the thread of a pecuniary en- 
 tanglement and of a diplomatic scandal which in- 
 dubitably exhibits the causes of the present war in all 
 their nudity." 
 
 "It is indubitable also that the greater part of the 
 private shares of stock have been already bought by 
 the house of Gibbs there remaining in Chilean hands 
 only those of the Ministers, Senators, Deputies and 
 other personalities of official rank." 
 
 Finally, there enters as a principal factor in the conditions 
 of the war which we have pointed out, Chile's fear that the 
 United States or the great European powers should inter- 
 vene in it and should wrest from it the coveted prey. Its sit- 
 uation was truly unsustainable before a more or less ener- 
 getic intervention because it was neither sufficiently powerful 
 
 28
 
 to resist nor could find support in justice for it was outside 
 of all the rules of international law. 
 
 The war had in fact ended with the capture of the Huas- 
 car : because Peru was absolutely vanquished and at the mercy 
 of Chile and the latter could impose on it all the conditions 
 of the conqueror without needing to exert any effort; because 
 in the case of an unlikely resistance by Peru it was sufficient 
 for Chile to blockade all its coast which not only deprived 
 Peru of all its resources but filled Chile's purse. The Chil- 
 eans without any discrepancy have acknowledged this fact am- 
 ply confirming the theory already set forth that whomsoever 
 possesses the sea that bathes the coasts of the two belligerent 
 countries has the war won. 
 
 Why then did Chile not impose peace and why instead did 
 it undertake a terrestrial campaign which would sprinkle 
 with the blood of its own sons and with that of the Peruvians 
 besides, the practically defenseless land of the latter? 
 
 It was precisely at that time that the first mediation of the 
 functionaries of the United States took place. That media- 
 tion is related in all its details by the same Chilean historian 
 Bulnes at page 423 of Vol. I and the result of it was that 
 which he expresses in the following paragraph at page 425 : 
 
 "The president and the cabinet accepted the pro- 
 posal regarding Bolivia but not so Peru and the first 
 diplomatic step of the North American Secretary of 
 State terminated. The text of the Chilean reply 
 which was drawn up by Varas reads as follows: 
 
 "Regarding the matters with Peru, although the 
 bases proposed correspond to a great extent to the ob- 
 ject of the war, the disloyal conduct of Peru or of its 
 government in preparing for the war at the same 
 time that it gave Chile signs of friendly and pacific 
 sentiments and in appearing as a mediator when it was 
 bound by a secret treaty of alliance with Bolivia, our 
 enemy at that time, furnishes just motives to the 
 
 29
 
 country and to the government for not considering 
 themselves satisfied with the solution of our present 
 questions by means of arbitration and to exact securi- 
 ties that in the future Peru will not execute treaties 
 such as that of February 1873 which it has main- 
 tained secret during six years awaiting doubtless the 
 occasion of being our aggressor to advantage — a treaty 
 which strictly considered did not bind it to make 
 war — if we do not wish to run the serious risk of re- 
 maining subject to a permanent threat to our exter- 
 nal security and to being always prepared to repel it." 
 
 The pretexts of Minister Varas to practically reject the 
 mediation as regards Peru, he having accepted it as regards 
 Bolivia which country in the opinion of Chile, had provoked 
 the war, cannot naturally be taken seriously. The true ex- 
 planation of this is that Chile was still concealing that it had 
 already obtained from Bolivia all that it had desired, that is, 
 the entire desert of Atacama with all its riches while Peru 
 still possessed the province of Tarapaca with its riches. And 
 this was Chile's principal objective. 
 
 It was necessary, against wind and tide, to take Tarapaca 
 within the least possible time and to check in the meantime 
 all intervention until Chile should be able to allege as a title, 
 possession and the blood of its sons shed to obtain it. 
 
 The Chilean army, therefore, embarked at Antofagasta and 
 landed at Pisagua notwithstanding the heroic opposition of 
 the small Peruvian garrison; it thus cut Peru's line of de- 
 fense and thereupon marched on the bulk of the Peruvian 
 army of Tarapaca which was reduced in numbers by the 
 absence of three thousand Bolivians whom President Daza 
 caused to counter-march at the best opportunity so that they 
 should not take part in the battle. The Peruvian army was 
 moreover depressed and demoralized by volleys fired on it 
 from the rear by Bolivian troops which took part in the bat- 
 
 30
 
 tie and by the abandonment of the field by those same Bolivian 
 troops which did not stop until they reached Bolivia. 
 
 No one denies these facts, they have not been satisfactorily 
 explained, and it is natural that, in the absence of such ex- 
 planation, they be connected with the repeated negotiations 
 of Chilean agents with Bolivian chiefs to separate Bolivia 
 from the alliance in consideration of helping it to conquer 
 Tacna and Arica. The "War of the Pacific" by the Chilean 
 historian Bulnes, Vol. I, Pp. 226, 329, 598, 627, 629, 638 
 and 720, may be consulted in this regard. 
 
 After the battle of San Francisco or of Dolores to which 
 we have already referred, Tarapaca remained under the con- 
 trol of Chile in spite of the Peruvian victory in the battle of 
 that name (Tarapaca) obtained by part of the reorganized 
 remains of the Peruvian army which had to go immediately 
 to join the Peruvian forces which later took part in the battle 
 of Tacna. 
 
 Once the Chilean army was in possession of Tarapaca, no 
 one in Chile any longer concealed which had been the object 
 of the war nor the unspeakable joy that having reached the 
 goal caused to all Chileans. 
 
 The Chilean army already counting on the triumph at the 
 time of leaving Antofagasta, the army's Chief of Staff thus 
 proclaimed it: 
 
 "You will return with the consciousness of having 
 opened a new era of the national history placing the 
 peace, the industry and the prosperity of the Father- 
 land on broad and insuperable basis." Bulnes "Guer- 
 ra del Pacifico" Vol. I, P. 521. 
 
 After the battle of Dolores, the historian Bulnes writes in 
 Vol. I, P. 640 of the "Guerra del Pacifico": 
 
 "The campaign of Tarapaca was virtually termi- 
 nated because although it is true that a heroic and un- 
 fortunate event (the battle of Tarapaca) clouded its 
 
 31
 
 brilliant aspect, in fact the occupant, the traditional 
 lord of that territory, abandoned it forever, and a new 
 owner will cover it henceforth with its sword and 
 with its law." 
 
 The same Bulnes in Vol. I of the aforesaid work at page 
 34, referring to the grudges between the chiefs and the gov- 
 ernment when the campaign on Arica was being effected, 
 writes : 
 
 "The campaign moved in this atmosphere." 
 "With this human mud was made the gold dust of 
 the war of the Pacific." 
 
 And in the conferences of the same port of Arica on board 
 the Lackawanna, the Chilean plenipotentiaries dared to pre- 
 sent, without circumlocutions of any sort and with the char- 
 acter of ultimatum, the cession of Tarapaca as principal con- 
 dition of the peace. 
 
 Tarapaca was therefore unquestionably the object of the 
 war declared by Chile on Peru under the futile pretext of a 
 secret treaty of alliance with Bolivia which treaty Chile knew 
 immediately after its execution and possibly even before then ; 
 a treaty which had for its object precisely to protect the allies 
 against the conquest of its saltpetre lands which they saw in 
 the distance and which was now an indubitable fact. 
 
 In any case, either the motive of the war was other than 
 the appropriation of Tarapaca or it was its appropriation. If 
 the former, the cession of Tarapaca contained in the treaty 
 of peace is not explainable nor can be the termination of the 
 war and is consequently a cession without cause and considera- 
 tion and as a result does not bind Peru. If the latter, the war 
 had an object which in the Chilean opinion is not only unjust 
 but inconfessable and doubtless subject to the opposition of 
 the whole world and especially of America. 
 
 In any case, the final result is that the cession of Tarapaca 
 included in the treaty of peace of 1883 does not bind Peru 
 and is perfectly null. 
 
 32
 
 "War is just when international law authorizes re- 
 course to arms; unjust when it is contrary to the prin- 
 ciples of that law. 
 
 "This principle is not only a rule of morals but a 
 true principle of law. It has not it is true great prac- 
 tical value at present because each one of the parties 
 affrms the justice of its cause and there is no judge to 
 decide as to the value of their assertions. Neverthe- 
 less that distinction between the law and morals has 
 already some effects today, especially concerning the 
 obligations of allies and the intervention of neutral 
 powers; the allies owe their cooperation when the 
 war is just; third parties are entitled to intervene 
 when the war is iniquitous." Bluntschli "Droit In- 
 ternational Codifie" P. 301. 
 
 In the present case, strange to say, the difficulty which 
 Bluntschli points out in connection with the application of 
 the principle that the unjust war ought not to produce effect 
 and may be the motive of intervention, does not exist be- 
 cause according to Chilean criterion itself the cause of the 
 war of 1879 was not only unjust but inconfessable. 
 
 V. The treaty of peace does not therefore bind Peru and 
 we hope that it will not either implicitly or explicitly on any 
 account renounce the expectations which the foregoing con- 
 siderations hold open for it. 
 
 Suffice it to say at present that the object of the war having 
 been the conquest, unknown in the South American law, 
 absolutely unfounded and unconfessed by Chile, the latter 
 has none of the rights which victory gives in war the injus- 
 tice of which is not obviously demonstrated as in the present 
 case and, on the contrary, is liable for all the damages which 
 it caused Peru with it. 
 
 The possession of Tarapaca constituted the second great 
 stage of the War, and this time as the first, when Peru lost 
 the Huascar which was its only war weapon worthy of being 
 taken into consideration, it was natural to expect that the 
 
 33
 
 Chilean invasion would cease. But the violation of justice 
 has its unbreakable logic. 
 
 Chile did not feel secure in Tarapaca. It had the con- 
 sciousness of its injustice and this inspired it with two pur- 
 poses instead of one which it had had before : that of pressing 
 Peru in order that the latter might give it a title, which 
 Chile was absolutely lacking, with which to legitimize in 
 some way the possession of Tarapaca, and that of reducing 
 Peru to the most complete impotency possible in order that it 
 should not later rise against Chile, aroused by the frightful 
 injustice of which the latter had made it a victim. To effect 
 these purposes it conceived the most cruel of wars of 
 destruction that has been witnessed in modern times be- 
 tween two Christian countries they being, besides, of the 
 same race, having a common history, speaking the same 
 language and belonging to a continental community founded 
 mainly on identical principles of fraternity, independence, lib- 
 erty and honor which the rules of their private and public 
 laws have inspired: the uti possidetis of 1810 and arbitration 
 were always the two axes of the relations between the mem- 
 bers of this community, the former insuring the territorial 
 integrity of each one of them within the boundary with which 
 they were born to the independent life and the second pre- 
 serving harmony through even the gravest disputes. 
 
 Chile mortally wounded all this beautiful building to nour- 
 ish its excessive ambition for wealth and did not hesitate in 
 sailing along the extensive Peruvian coast with its ships bom- 
 barding its defenseless forts, burning all the communities, 
 plantations and factories of its numerous valleys and carrying 
 the war up to the capital which escaped burning and destruc- 
 tion only through the energetic intervention of the neutral 
 navies anchored at Callao which could not, nevertheless, pre- 
 vent the destruction of all the communities which the Chilean 
 army went through prior to arriving there. The detailed 
 
 34
 
 narration of the incredible events which we have just out- 
 lined is found not only in the works written by the Peruvians 
 but in the more numerous works written by Chileans in which 
 phrases of just reproach are not scarce. We shall cite here 
 Barros Arana, Bulnes, Vicuna, Mackena, Chileans; Sir Cle- 
 ments R. Markham, C. B. F. R. S., British, and Paz Soldan 
 and Maurtua, Peruvians, and we shall prescind of the rest 
 because works on this subject are so numerous. The facts 
 involved have had so much resonance in the world that we 
 deem it surplusage to insist on the matter and we proceed to 
 deal with how indispensable for Peru is the treasure which 
 at the end of three years of occupation of its capital it had 
 to cede to Chile by the treaty of peace. 
 
 VI. As a result of the height of the Andes which back up 
 the coast of Peru and of the currents of the ocean which 
 bathes it, it never rains on that coast which is for this reason 
 an immense sandy desert cut at more or less fifty points only 
 by torrential rivers which descend from the snow covered 
 peaks towards the sea and irrigate the lands through which 
 they run forming precious oases the production of which is, 
 however, far from weighing in the balance as does in space 
 the expanse which surrounds them. But all has its compen- 
 sation in nature, and if it has denied to the Peruvian coast 
 the immense benefit of the waters from the sky it has given 
 it the accummulation of substances such as the guano and the 
 saltpetre the formation of which the rain prevents on the 
 lands which it waters and which would serve Peru to extract, 
 by selling them as fertilizer for agriculture and other uses on 
 lands better endowed, the articles which it cannot produce, 
 and to obtain from them also the means of extending its 
 scarce agriculture by artificial irrigation. 
 
 Chile has broken this equilibrium established by nature and 
 has left the coast of Peru deprived of both rain and the prod- 
 ucts which are formed in its absence and which serve as a 
 
 35
 
 substitute for it, whereas the Chilean coast where the clouds 
 are less miserly is an inexhaustible source of wealth and of 
 beauty on which the Chilean people always find productive 
 and delightful work. The products of the immense desert 
 which is outside its boundaries were not needed by it and in 
 its hands they serve only for the luxury of the leading classes, 
 for armament disproportionate to its population and its nat- 
 ural production and for an ostentatious diplomacy and a pro- 
 paganda in favor of its interests and of its ideals which all 
 the world is appreciating at what it is worth, not by what it 
 costs, which is a great deal, but for what it teaches, which 
 is nothing or something less. Chile has then also broken its 
 own equilibrium and has compromised by this deed its future 
 which it thought to insure and which was then notably clearer. 
 
 Chile does not wish to acknowledge as the allies of Europe 
 in the last war have acknowledged that one cannot ruin the 
 neighbor without causing one's own ruin and that the salt- 
 petres and the guanos of the desert of which it has despoiled 
 its owners, to the great detriment of their progress and pro- 
 duction, will sooner or later cause its own ruin through moral 
 and economic considerations which have become indisputable. 
 
 America, not blinded by interest as the men who direct 
 Chilean policy, fortunately knows what to believe and in one 
 way or another it will reestablish the wise order of nature 
 destroyed by the most unjust and most cruel of the wars. 
 
 VII. Meanwhile Chile continues to ascend along the path 
 which leads it away from justice and from reparation to the 
 allies of 1879 but which certainly does not lead it to a higher 
 place in the opinion of America nor to a greater prosperity 
 in the commercial dealings with its people nor to a higher 
 level in its interior progress and sociability. 
 
 Chile continues effectively disturbing the tranquility of the 
 vanquished of 1879 and breaking with unheard of lack of 
 practical sense the treaty of peace which gave it, using Bulnes' 
 
 36
 
 expression, the gold dust of Tarapaca pursued indefatigably 
 during forty years. 
 
 Peace had just been signed and Chile continued the con- 
 quest to which it put an end extending itself through terri- 
 tories and communities on the province of Tarata and even 
 of the Department of Puno and refusing to return them 
 under pretexts no more sound than those which it alleged to 
 declare the war. The question of Tarata is also already forty 
 years old during which years Chile has been restraining its 
 determination and aggravating the deed in exactly the same 
 way that during the previous forty years it had resisted the 
 just claims of Bolivia at the same time that it already ad- 
 vanced into its desert with the aim of awaiting a propitious 
 occasion to finally obtain a title of ownership and to begin 
 anew on the basis of what it should offer it. There cannot 
 be peace with Chile because war is its industry. 
 
 More serious still is the violation which Chile has made and 
 continues to make of the third clause of the treaty of peace 
 which says: 
 
 "The territory of the provinces of Tacna and 
 Arica which bounds .... shall continue to be pos- 
 sessed by Chile and subject to the Chilean laws and 
 authorities during the period of ten years counted 
 from the date of ratification of this treaty of peace. 
 At the end of this period a plebiscite will decide, by 
 popular vote, whether the territory of the said prov- 
 inces remains definitively under the ownership and sov- 
 ereignty of Chile or continues to be part of the Peru- 
 vian territory. That one of the two countries to 
 which the provinces of Tacna and Arica remain an- 
 nexed shall pay to the other ten million pesos Chilean 
 silver currency or Peruvian soles of equal alloy and 
 weight." 
 
 "A special protocol which will be considered an 
 integral part of this treaty will establish the form 
 in which the plebiscite shall take place and the terms 
 
 37
 
 on and the periods within which the ten millions shall 
 be paid by the country which remain the owner of the 
 provinces of Tacna and Arica." 
 
 Chile avoided with different pretexts the verbal insinua- 
 tions of the Peruvian functionaries to execute the protocol 
 contemplated in the last part of the transcribed clause until 
 April of the year 1892, when the Peruvian Foreign Office 
 formally initiated the negotiations for the execution of the 
 complementary protocol provided for in the treaty of Ancon 
 and from said date until now it has not been possible to reach 
 any definitive results. The course which these negotiations 
 already more than thirty years old have followed, which it 
 would be impossible to state here in all its details, has been 
 thus summarized by Dr. Victor M. Maurtua in his recent 
 work "Sobre el Pacifico del Sur" at page 159. 
 
 "The weight of the whole treaty of Ancon has 
 fallen on Peru. A disastrous diplomatic instrument 
 without any doubt! And nevertheless Peru has per- 
 formed it loyally. One only clause left some hope: 
 the recovery of the heroic provinces of live and intense 
 loyalty. Peru has not been able to obtain the holding 
 of the plebiscite on which their restitution depended." 
 
 "In 1892, 1893 and 1896 it made efforts to recover 
 its provinces by means of direct settlement or by 
 plebiscite. In vain. On the termination of the pe- 
 riod of ten years provided by the treaty for the Chilean 
 occupation Peru demanded that its provinces should be 
 returned to its administration. This was refused it. 
 In 1892, 1894 (twice), 1896, 1898, 1900, 1905, 1907, 
 Peru insistently claimed the plebiscite. Chile refused 
 to effect it pretending to proceed itself and without 
 any guaranty of sincerity to consult the popular will 
 giving the right to vote to the persons which it should 
 designate and under the conditions which it should 
 deem proper to confirm its conquest. Peru proposes 
 to entrust the zone of the plebiscite to an interna- 
 tional commission. New Chilean refusal. Peru of- 
 
 38
 
 fered to resort to arbitration to settle the difference 
 and to determine the proceedings of a popular consul- 
 tation. Chile refused arbitration. Peru entered into 
 two agreements with the Chilean government: one 
 in 1894, the other in 1898, the latter was fully per- 
 fected for the holding of the plebiscite. Chile with- 
 drew from the first of said agreements and its Par- 
 liament rejected the second because it contained an 
 arbitration clause regarding certain formalities of the 
 plebiscite. Chile to check the Peruvian effort under- 
 takes the denationalization of the provinces and their 
 assimilation in a tyrannical way. Peru fought this 
 policy, interposed claims against it one hundred times, 
 denounced it as a fraud against the treaty. Chile dis- 
 regards these claims and continues its work expelling 
 the Peruvian element, appropriating the real estate, 
 arbitrarily importing immigrants for the purpose of 
 Chilean colonization. Finally, when after twenty 
 years its occupation title had lapsed and it could be- 
 lieve its work of denationalization ended, it invited 
 Peru in 1909 and 1910 to a plebiscite. Chile even 
 then did not propose to organize a true popular con- 
 sultation : It declared that the third article of the 
 treaty of Ancon constituted a disguised annexation, 
 the plebiscite would be held under the control of its 
 authorities and for the purpose of legalizing the an- 
 nexation. Such is, in a few words, the synthesis of 
 the affair." 
 
 So Chile has violated the third clause of the treaty of 
 Ancon. There is not the least doubt of this. The develop- 
 ment of the negotiations recorded in detail in the reports of 
 the Foreign Offices of the two countries, the narratives of 
 their newspaper men and historians, everything, everything, 
 tends to confirm the most absolute and complete evidence on 
 this matter. We shall not therefore insist on it and we shall 
 finish by copying from the book "Documentos Esenciales del 
 Debate Peruano-Chileno," already mentioned, Vol. II, P. 
 163 the following conclusive documents: 
 
 39
 
 "D. 67.— BULNES THE OFFICIAL CHIL- 
 EAN HISTORIAN STATES THAT PERU 
 HAS ALWAYS WISHED TO FULFILL THE 
 TREATY OF ANCON AND THAT THE POL- 
 ICY OF CHILE HAS BEEN ONE OF VACIL- 
 LATIONS AND OF CURVES." 
 
 "Peru has had live interest in that the plebiscite 
 be held. To deny it is to place oneself in a bad situa- 
 tion because it can prove the contrary by merely ex- 
 hibiting the diplomatic documents. The reasons of 
 that interest are very clear and may be condensed as 
 follows : 
 
 "1. — Chile was in possession of the disputed thing 
 and the only means that Peru had of recovering it 
 was to press it to comply with the condition provided 
 in the treaty. Consequently the natural part of Peru 
 during the gestation of this affair was "active," that 
 of Chile "passive." 
 
 "2. — Peru has been listening to the clamor of the 
 inhabitants to incorporate themselves in their an- 
 cient nationality and by patriotism and even by de- 
 corum it could not show itself unfeeling to that pres- 
 
 sure." 
 
 "3. — Peru has had blind confidence in the plebis- 
 cite. The Peruvian policy has been firm from the be- 
 ginning of the debate and ours has had all sorts of 
 vacillations and curves. The Peruvian objective 
 could not vacillate because its ancient desire has been 
 to recover its ancient provinces causing the plebiscite 
 to be held Under the control of a foreign authority 
 and trying to obtain the greatest facilities for the pay- 
 ment of the ransom." 
 
 "On the other hand Chile has worked one day to 
 win the plebiscite for its own benefit, another to make 
 a gift of the territory to Bolivia, another to deliver 
 it to Peru and naturally its action has been weak and 
 it has made declarations and stated contradictory and 
 dangerous principles." 
 
 "Gonzalo Bulnes." 
 
 40
 
 "D. 68.— THE CHILEAN SENATOR ROSS 
 DECLARES THAT CHILE HAS HINDERED 
 THE REALIZATION OF THE PLEBISCITE 
 AND THAT IN THE OPINION OF THE 
 BRITISH DELEGATE MR. BUNSEN ITS 
 SITUATION IN THIS REGARD IS FALSE 
 AND UNSUSTAINABLE. 
 
 "The period of ten years for the holding of the 
 stipulated plebiscite ended in 1893, twenty-eight years 
 ago, and that act has not been performed." 
 
 "Why? We can in conscience affirm that it has 
 not been performed because Chile has hindered its per- 
 formance by opposing all kinds of difficulties and of 
 dilatory measures." 
 
 "In Chile, Peru has been blamed for the delay in 
 the arrangements for the plebiscite but it does not 
 seem that this argument could be proved. On the 
 contrary, in Peru Chile is blamed." 
 
 "The situation is very clear ; the "entente" triumph- 
 ing in the war which is very probable, and interna- 
 tional tribunal will be organized the jurisdiction of 
 which will embrace all the countries of America. It 
 is proclaimed by President Wilson in the name of all 
 the belligerent nations; it is supported by Great 
 Britain ; it is accepted by Peru which proposes to claim 
 its rights before it. Peru will certainly be one of the 
 members of the League of Nations and shall cause it- 
 self to be heard." 
 
 "If the actual situation continues Chile will see 
 itself compelled to accept the arbitration of the tri- 
 bunal of the League of Nations as to the realization 
 and form of the plebiscite. That the verdict of the 
 tribunal will be contrary to Chile there is no doubt." 
 
 "Mr. Bunsen as an experienced diplomat took good 
 care as much in Chile as in Bolivia and in Peru not 
 to manifest his opinion on the Tacna and Arica ques- 
 tion. But we may now affirm with full knowledge 
 of the case that Mr. Bunsen has studied with his 
 secretary all the antecedents of the Tacna and Arica 
 
 41
 
 question between Peru and Chile and has formed the 
 firm personal opinion that Chile has failed to fulfill 
 its obligations established in the treaty of Ancon and 
 that it finds itself in that regard in a false and unsus- 
 tainable situation." 
 
 "This is an important and not very favorable ante- 
 cedent for Chile in this delicate question. The plebis- 
 cite will be held and the result will be at least very 
 doubtful for Chile. We would have to submit to the 
 impositions of the tribunal bearing the consequent 
 shame and probably would have to submit also to 
 have the territories of Tacna and Arica returned to 
 the jurisdiction and sovereignty of Peru and remain 
 partitioned from Tarapaca." 
 
 "Augustin Ross," 
 "Revista Chilena." 
 
 As international authority we transcribe the follow- 
 ing: 
 
 "To break a treaty of peace is to violate the agree- 
 ments entered into in it either by doing what it forbids 
 or by not doing what it prescribes. One may fail to 
 perform the obligations arising from a treaty in three 
 different manners: by conduct contrary to the nature 
 and to the essence of the treaty of peace in general or 
 by acts incompatible with the particular nature of the 
 treaty or finally by violating some one of its express 
 articles." 
 
 "One acts against the nature and the essense of 
 every treaty of peace, against peace itself, when one 
 disturbs it without cause, either by taking up arms and 
 renewing the war although one cannot allege even a 
 scarcely plausible pretext or by offending the mental 
 comfort of the one with whom the peace has been 
 made and by treating it or its subjects in a manner 
 incompatible with the status of a nation and which it 
 cannot suffer without failing in its self respect . . . ." 
 
 "The second way of breaking a treaty of peace is by 
 doing something contrary to that which the particular 
 nature of the treaty requires. Thus every act con- 
 
 42
 
 trary to friendship breaks a treaty of peace made under 
 the express condition of living forever as good friends. 
 To favor the enemies of a nation, to treat its subjects 
 harshly, to molest its commerce without cause, to pre- 
 fer another nation to it, to refuse it necessary supplies 
 for which it wishes to pay and which could be spared, 
 to protect its conspirators or rebels, to give them 
 asylum: all those are acts equally contrary to friend- 
 ship . . . ." 
 
 "Finally peace is broken by the violation of some one 
 of the express articles of the treaty. This third 
 manner of breaking is the most decided, the least sub- 
 ject to evasions and chicanery. Whichever fails to 
 perform its obligations annuls the treaty as much as it 
 is in its power to do so; there is no doubt of that." 
 
 "Pretended delays are the equivalent of an express 
 refusal and they do not differ from it except by the 
 artifice with which the one which makes use of them 
 would wish to cover its bad faith. It adds fraud to 
 perfidy and really violates the article which it ought 
 to comply with." 
 
 "When the treaty of peace is violated by one of the 
 contracting parties the other may declare the treaty 
 broken or let it subsist; because it cannot be bound by 
 a treaty which contains reciprocal agreements towards 
 one which does not respect that very treaty . . . ." 
 Vattel Droit Des Gens Pp. 747, 751, 752 and 756. 
 
 "To recommence a war, by breach of the articles 
 of a treaty of peace, is deemed much more odious than 
 to provoke a war by some new demand and aggression ; 
 for the latter is simply injustice but, in the former 
 case, the party is guilty both of perfidy and injustice. 
 The violation of any one article of a treaty is a vio- 
 lation of the whole treaty ; for all the articles are de- 
 pendent on each other, and one is to be deemed a con- 
 dition of the other; and a violation of any single 
 article overthrows the whole treaty, if the injured 
 party elects so to consider it. This may, however, 
 be prevented by an express provision, that if one article 
 be broken, the others shall, nevertheless, continue in 
 full force. There is a strong instance in the history 
 
 43
 
 of the United States of the annihilation of treaties by 
 the act of the injured party. In 1798, the Congress 
 of that country declared that the treaties with France 
 were no longer obligatory on the United States, as 
 they had been repeatedly violated on the part of the 
 French Government, and all just claims for repara- 
 tion refused." Kent "International Law" P. 420. 
 
 The act of Congress "annulling" the treaties fol- 
 lows: 
 
 "Whereas the treaties concluded between the 
 United States and France have been repeatedly vio- 
 lated on the part of the French Government, and the 
 just claims of the United States for reparation of the 
 injuries so committed have been refused, and their 
 attempts to negotiate an amicable adjustment of all 
 complaints between the two nations have been repelled 
 with great indignity; and whereas, under authority 
 of the French Government, there is yet pursued 
 against the United States a system of predatory vio- 
 lence, infracting the said treaties and hostile to the 
 rights of a free and independent nation: 
 
 "Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Repre- 
 sentatives of the United States of America in Con- 
 gress assembled, That the United States are of right 
 freed and exonerated from the stipulations of the 
 treaty and of the consular convention heretofore con- 
 cluded between the United States and France, and 
 that the same shall not henceforth be regarded as 
 legally obligatory on the Government or citizens of 
 the United States. 
 
 "Approved July 7, 1798." 1 U. S. Stat. 1-578. 
 
 "The violation of any one article of the treaty is a 
 violation of the whole treaty; for all the articles are 
 dependent on each other and one is to be deemed a con- 
 dition of the other. A violation of any single article 
 abrogates the whole treaty, if the injured party so 
 elects to consider it. This may, however, be pre- 
 vented by an express stipulation, that if one article be 
 broken, the others shall nevertheless continue in full 
 
 44
 
 force. If the treaty is violated by one of the con- 
 tracting parties, either by proceedings incompatible 
 with its general spirit, or by a specific breach of any 
 one of its articles, it becomes not absolutely void, but 
 voidable at the election of the injured party. If he 
 prefers not to come to a rupture, the treaty remains 
 valid and obligatory. He may waive or remit the in- 
 fraction committed, or he may demand a just satisfac- 
 tion." Wheaton "International Law" P. 621. 
 
 There is not then any difference of opinion among the in- 
 ternational law authorities on the point that the violation of 
 a clause by one of the contracting parties entitles the other 
 to-consider the treaty null or lapsed. 
 
 A slight discrepancy exists regarding the kind of the obliga- 
 tion violated or not fulfilled and some authors insist that it 
 must be essential, in the light of the nature of the treaty, or 
 of unquestionable importance. But nothing more essential 
 can be conceived in the treaty of Ancon than the obligation 
 contracted by Chile in the third clause because the third clause 
 was the only point of discord in the final conferences which 
 preceded the execution of the peace and only the irrevocable 
 resolution of the Peruvian negotiators which did not yield 
 the rights which said clause gives Peru resulted in its accept- 
 ance by the Chileans. 
 
 Nothing can be considered more essential in a treaty than 
 that stipulation without which it would have been impossible 
 to make the treaty, because its insertion signifies that in the 
 final accord of the parties both agreed that the existence of 
 the treaty was dependent upon that stipulation. And that 
 Peru exacted the third clause as an irrevocable condition is 
 proved by the record of the negotiations which preceded the 
 signing of the treaty. 
 
 As it would not be possible to transcribe here all the docu- 
 ments in point we shall limit ourselves to the following two 
 which we take from the Biblioteca del Mercurio Peruano's 
 
 45
 
 "Documentos Esenciales del Debate Peruano Chileno" pub- 
 lished by the Comite Patriotico Peruano, Series A. Vol. 2, 
 
 P. 83: 
 
 "THE TREATY OF ANCON AND THE 
 NATURE OF THE PLEBISCITE PROVIDED 
 FOR IN IT." 
 
 <<D. 40— BASIS PROPOSED TO GENERAL 
 IGLESIAS AND REJECTED BY THE LAT- 
 TER." 
 
 "In January of the year 1883 the plenipotentiary 
 Mr. Novoa presented to Mr. Castro Saldivar a mem- 
 orandum of note containing the following bases: 
 
 "No. 1. — The absolute and unconditional cession of 
 Tarapaca. 
 
 "No. 2. — The sale of Tacna and Arica for ten mil- 
 lion pesos payable three at the time of ratification of 
 the treaty and the remaining seven in two, four and 
 six years ; 
 
 "No. 3. — The territories ceded and bought do not 
 acknowledge Peruvian debt." 
 
 "As regards the guano and the saltpetre, the con- 
 tract entered into and the decrees of the supreme gov- 
 ernment of Chile on the matter shall be faithfully 
 fulfilled." 
 
 "No. 4. — As to the islands of Lobos, Chile will con- 
 tinue to administer them until the termination of the 
 contract of sale of the million tons and when the 
 treaty be ratified and exchanged Chile will deliver to 
 Peru the fifty per cent net which it now reserves for 
 itself;" 
 
 "No. 5. — Subsequent agreements will provide for 
 the commercial relations and the indemnities due to the 
 Chileans." 
 
 "D. 41.— DECLARATION OF THE CHIL- 
 EAN NEGOTIATOR NOVOA ON THE RE- 
 FUSAL OF PERU TO SELL TACNA AND 
 ARICA AND ON THE VERIDICAL AND 
 FREE NATURE OF THE PLEBISCITE 
 WHICH WAS PROPOSED." 
 
 46
 
 "Mr. Novoa says in his letter to Mr. Castro Saldi- 
 var: 
 
 "It having been declared by me that it was not even 
 possible to enter into discussion regarding the cession 
 of Tarapaca, Mr. Lavalle as well as you went on to 
 object to the second proposal relating to Tacna and 
 Arica. You expressed to me that you did not accept 
 the proposal for ten millions nor for any sum because 
 not only were there Peruvian interests in that territory 
 which already involved an immense sacrifice but there 
 was also Peruvian population. You further made a 
 series of observations in this regard." 
 
 "For my part, I manifested to you that the situa- 
 tion created by the war rendered the possession of those 
 territories necessary for Chile, and that the circum- 
 stance that there existed Peruvian population there 
 was not such a serious obstacle and was on the other 
 hand what always happened in analogous cases. That 
 in the primordial interests of peace that was not an 
 obstacle. You insisted on your observations and it 
 was left up to both sides to think the matter over 
 further and to try to arrive at a conclusion at a con- 
 ference to be held soon thereafter." 
 
 "On the 9th of April we again met in Chorrillos 
 and resuming the previous conference the territories of 
 Tacna and Arica were again the subject of discussion. 
 After a prolonged discussion the idea of the plebiscite 
 such as the treaty of the 20th of October has recorded 
 it was accepted. Agreed upon this idea, Mr. Lavalle 
 requested that if the popular vote declared that Tacna 
 and Arica should remain forever under the ownership 
 of Peru the latter did not have to pay ten millions of 
 pesos since it did not acquire but simply kept what 
 was its own. I insisted that it was necessary to estab- 
 lish reciprocity since whether this territory should 
 later be Chilean or Peruvian depended on the popular 
 vote and not on the will of either of the contracting 
 parties." 
 
 Every treaty between two nations is in general subject 
 to the same rules which apply to a bilateral contract between 
 
 47
 
 two private parties: each one owes the equivalent of what it 
 receives: what does conqueror give in a treaty of peace in ex- 
 change for receiving from the conquered all that was the ob- 
 ject of the dispute or immeasurably more as in the present 
 case? It gives the peace, the suppression of the force which 
 oppresses the vanquished and the restitution of all the mani- 
 festations of consideration and friendship which are substi- 
 tuted for the hostilities of the war. 
 
 Well then, Peru has not had peace since it signed the treaty 
 with Chile. It has not received in any form or proportion 
 the equivalent of the immense sacrifices which were exacted 
 from it. The treaty, therefore, if it ever bound Peru, has 
 ceased to be binding upon it. . 
 
 It is fully evident then that the treaty of peace of 1883 
 has lapsed due to the non-fulfillment of the third clause and 
 by Chile's opposition to it during thirty years, besides being 
 null from its inception as we demonstrated before. 
 
 We the natives of Tarapaca consequently have the most 
 just and gratifying outlook of the devolution of Tarapaca 
 to the Motherland and of living again in the land of our 
 birth whence we have been driven by the invader. 
 
 This anticipation must now convert itself into reality as a 
 result of the work of the conference which is about to be held 
 in Washington. 
 
 VIII. We cannot expect that the conference ignore our 
 rights which are also those of all Peru because if such a thing 
 should happen, these other two would also happen : the work 
 of the conference would be truncate and its results no less 
 truncate, and we not only would remain in the sad and 
 ruinous condition in which we now find ourselves but we 
 would lose the hope of obtaining in the future the restitutions 
 to which we are entitled, since a settlement between Peru and 
 Chile, in the absence of the force which exerted pressure on 
 the former when the treaty of peace was executed, would 
 
 43
 
 signify a clean title to all that which that treaty granted to 
 Chile should it not be altered by the conference, and would 
 signify besides, implicitly or explicitly, the guaranty of that 
 great republic to the maintenance of the iniquitous conquest 
 which tore us from the Motherland. 
 
 IX. Finally, if a treaty should be signed in Washington 
 without considering the rights of Peru to Tarapaca or with- 
 out conceding them to it, the conference would have been a 
 failure because Chile once the irrevocable owner of Tarapaca, 
 Bolivia would irrevocably also remain deprived of every out- 
 let to the ocean and of all hope of having it so long as the 
 new treaty should subsist. Chile could not then be willing 
 to return to Bolivia the desert which it wrested from it nor 
 any part of that desert because however small that part 
 should be it would always cause a gap in what would have 
 become with unassailable title Chilean property. 
 
 It is possible that Chile would then go back to the old 
 theme of giving Bolivia a port at the expense of Peru. How- 
 ever much an eighty years' incubation may have naturalized 
 in the Chilean minds this idea that Peru besides granting its 
 own to Chile ought to pay for the latter's trespasses against 
 Bolivia, Bolivia would not dare to accept such a present nor 
 could America and the world fail to condemn it. 
 
 In any case, a problem would have remained without solu- 
 tion, and if it should solve itself in some way, as naturally 
 would happen because nations as well as rivers know how to 
 open for themselves an outlet to the sea, there would be in 
 America a commotion, if not two or more, and, meanwhile, 
 intranquility with all its consequences and dangers. The in- 
 dubitable common sense of the Government of that great 
 republic gives us the most deeply rooted hope that that will 
 not happen and that if the conference should not entirely 
 solve the problem of the South Pacific, it would at least not 
 close the door to just subsequent solutions. 
 
 49
 
 CABLE ADDRESS TO PRESIDENT WILSON BY THE 
 NATIVES OF TARAPACA. 
 
 Lima, February 8th, 1919. 
 To President Wilson, 1.5 P. M. 
 
 Paris. 
 
 We, natives of Tarapaca, of Tacna and Arica, after 
 having supported for more than thirty-eight years the 
 suffering of a cruel captivity, find ourselves today expelled 
 violently by Chile from the land where we were born. 
 
 Peru is unable to protect out rights, as much owing to 
 the fact that it is unprepared for war as owing to its ac- 
 ceptance of the wise counsel of the United States of avoid- 
 ing any solution by force. 
 
 Under these conditions and before the indifference of 
 the other Governments of South America, we gather to 
 ask justice from the eminent man who in 1918 proclaimed 
 so that the whole world might hear, the most sublime 
 principles of international justice, and who, placing at the 
 service of these principles the colossal forces of his country, 
 triumphed against the despotism and arbitariness which 
 ruled in some States of Europe. 
 
 In order that your Excellency may appreciate the justice 
 of our cause, we give here a brief summary of the conflict 
 pending between our country and Chile. 
 
 Peru, which possessed a great territory and such fabulous 
 riches as that contained in the guano and the nitrate, 
 coveted nothing from the other countries of America; 
 while Chile, poor in resources and with a closely circum- 
 scribed territory, was possessed of the insistent desire of 
 enriching itself and extending its soil at the cost of the 
 neighboring nations. 
 
 In 1871, Chile contracted for two powerful armoured 
 cruisers and a large quantity of other warlike elements, 
 
 51
 
 which gave it a notable military superiority on the 
 Pacific. 
 
 Peru in order to meet the danger which threatened the 
 peace in this part of the American Continent accepted in 
 1873 the purely defensive alliance proposed by Bolivia; an 
 alliance in which unfortunately they did not succeed in 
 including the Argentine Republic, which would certainly 
 have prevented the war of conquest of 1879. 
 
 In that year Chile completed its armament and believed 
 that the moment had arrived for the realization of its 
 ambition. Availing itself of a petty protest, Antofagasta 
 was invaded, thus violating the arbitration agreement 
 which it had collaborated with Bolivia, and replied to the 
 friendly intervention of Peru by declaring war. 
 
 Better armed than its opponents Chile gained the war 
 and after a struggle of more than four years and occupation 
 of the capital of Peru by the Chilian army, peace was 
 proposed. 
 
 Chile imposed as a condition the cession of Tarapaca, 
 where were located the guano and nitrates which it desired, 
 a pretention which was refused by Peru. 
 
 General Hurlburt, the American Minister in Peru, made 
 known to the Chile representative that his instructions 
 were: "To work earnestly for the celebration of a treaty of 
 peace eliminating the cession of territories, whether as a 
 previous question, or as a fundamental basis of a treaty," 
 and in the memorandum which he addressed to the 
 Chilian chief on the 23rd of August, 1881, he said: "As 
 there never has existed any question of limits between 
 Peru and Chile, consequently there are no frontiers to 
 delimitate; and as Chile has repeatedly stated, publicly and 
 officially, that it has no intention nor design of forcibly 
 annexing territory, we are of the clear opinion that now 
 such an attitude would not harmonized with the dignity 
 and with good faith of Chile, and would be disastrous for 
 
 52
 
 the future tranquility of both countries, and engender a 
 grave enmity that would constantly be manifested by 
 disturbances. Such a procedure on the part of Chile 
 would be regarded with great disfavor by the United 
 States." 
 
 Unfortunately for Peru the assassination of President 
 Garfield occurred at this time and shortly afterwards Mr. 
 Hurlburt died violently and suspiciously. 
 
 The new President of the United States did not follow 
 out the foreign policy of his predecessor, and Peru con- 
 quered, without elements of war, and exhausted by a long 
 struggle was obliged to sign the peace of Ancon, imposed 
 by force, and according to which Chile appropriated the 
 department of Tarapaca and was to occupy Tacna and 
 Arica for ten years. 
 
 When this treaty of peace was discussed we the inhabi- 
 tants (natives) of Tarapaca presented a protest whose 
 conclusions were: 
 
 1st. — Not to recognize neither to accept as valid any 
 treaty to be celebrated by Peru in which may be stipu- 
 lated the cession of our department to Chile, or any 
 other State, whatever may be the Peruvian Government 
 celebrating it and the source from which its authority 
 emanates. 
 
 "2. — In the event of the condition mentioned in the 
 preceding articles being carried out, to resume our innate 
 right of sovereignty to be made effective in such form, how 
 and when convenient, remaining annulled "de facto" the 
 covenant convention uniting us to Peru. 
 
 "3. — Not to accept the appeal to the wishes of the 
 inhabitants of our department, unless the voting is con- 
 fined exclusively to the citizens born in this territory, the 
 only ones who have the right to decide as to its future 
 destiny, the voting to be carried out with full guarantees. 
 
 S3
 
 "4. — To remain loyal to the Peruvian laws, to follow the 
 dispositions of its recognized authority and to accept the 
 common fate reserved for Peru in the present or in what- 
 ever other emergency while the principles of its territorial 
 integrity written in the fundamental charter of the State, 
 are observed. 
 
 ''To opportunely determine the manner of making 
 effective those resolutions and giving them due publicity 
 according to the turn of events." 
 
 We, the citizens of Tacna and Arica presented a similar 
 protest but Chile employing the same methods used by 
 Germany against France in 1871, forced Peru to sign the 
 treaty which it imposed. 
 
 This treaty wrung from us by force, signed by function- 
 aries who were not the legal representatives of Peru, and 
 approved by a Congress in which there were no representa- 
 tives from Tarapaca, Tacna, Arica and many other prov- 
 inces of the Republic, violated the Peruvian constitution, 
 which prohibits the celebration of agreements affecting the 
 territorial integrity or the sovereignty of the nation. 
 
 Chile, which with the wealth taken from Tarapaca was 
 able to increase considerably its military power, never 
 complied with the treaty of Ancon wherein it might favour 
 Peru. It commenced to take possession of the province of 
 Tarata, adjoining that of Tacna, and placed every obstacle 
 to hinder the establishment of the basis for the realization 
 of the plebiscite, which would resolve definitely the 
 nationality of Tacna and Arica. 
 
 In the year 1898 Chile had serious difficulties with the 
 Argentine, and fearing war with this nation, consented to 
 sign the Billinghurst-Latorre protocol, which established 
 the condition of the plebiscite. This protocol was ap- 
 proved by Peru and also by the Chilian Senate; but as, in 
 the meantime, the conflict with the Argentine had been 
 
 54
 
 arranged, the Chilian Chamber of Deputies refused its 
 approval. 
 
 After that Peru took repeated steps to established the 
 conditions of the plebiscite; Chile not only ignored these 
 representations, but commenced in Iquique, Pisagua, Tacna 
 and Arica, a campaign of persecution against Peruvians 
 for the purpose of obliging them to abandon these terri- 
 tories. 
 
 In 1910 and 1911, the Peruvian schools were closed, and 
 Peruvian priests were expelled by force, the employment of 
 Peruvian port workmen in Iquique, Pisagua and Arica, 
 was prohibited, printing shops in which were published 
 four Peruvian periodicals, were destroyed, Peruvian clubs 
 at Iquique, Tacna and Arica, were also destroyed, and 
 what were considered the most representative Peruvians 
 were compelled to leave these cities. 
 
 On the declaration of the last European war, Chile 
 manifested its open sympathy for Germany, and as con- 
 crete and notable evidences of that sympathy, we cite the 
 two following illustrations: The Chilian authorities of 
 Magallanes advised the German squadron of the place 
 where they could find the British Pacific squadron, and 
 thanks to this information, the latter was attacked and 
 sunk off" the Chilian port ofCoronel;whennewswas received 
 of one of the German triumphs in French territory, a 
 portion of the Chilian army marched through the streets of 
 Santiago singing "Deutschland ueber alles." 
 
 Happily, thanks to the powerful aid rendered by the 
 United States, Germany was vanquished, and as this 
 defeat signified for Chile the disappearance on its dreams of 
 imperialism in South America, it has believed it con- 
 venient to prepare to resist the dictates of international 
 justice, and at the same time that it employs against the 
 Peruvian resident in Tarapaca, Tacna, Arica and Antofa- 
 gasta, an arbitrary .and cruel procedure of sack, assault, 
 
 55
 
 incendiarism and assassination, its Chancellery endeavors 
 to deceive other nations, brazenly denying these outrages, 
 which are public and notorious. 
 
 If your Excellency would condescend to send a comission 
 of honorable persons, proofs will be given this commission 
 that Chile expelled by force the Peruvian Consul from 
 Iquique, and that in this city as well as in Pisagua, Toco- 
 pilla, Tacna, Arica and Antofagasta, so called "patriotic 
 Leagues" have been organized with the purpose of insti- 
 tuting manifestations against Peruvians, who are physi- 
 cally assaulted in the streets and in their houses, which are 
 sacked while under the custody of soldiers they are turned 
 out of these territories; it will be found that the powerful 
 North American Company of Chuquicamata has been 
 forced to discharge its Peruvian employees and operators 
 as have the nitrate railways of Iquique and Pisagua, the 
 nitrato oficinas and foreign commercial houses. These 
 Peruvians rendered desperate by such persecutions, are 
 abandoning their home, losing their goods and properties 
 and arriving in Bolivia, Argentine and various cities of 
 Peru by thousands. 
 
 Your Excellency, making the proclamation of principles 
 in your discourses to the American Congress on the 8th of 
 January and the 1 1th of February 1918 and before the tomb 
 of Washington on the 4th of July of the same year, has 
 shown himself as a defender of humanity; these principles 
 have found a sympathetic echo in the heart of all good men, 
 and we are certain that they will serve as the basis of the 
 conditions under which peace will be celebrated, putting 
 an end to the last war and organizing future international 
 relations not only in Europe but in the entire world. 
 
 Before the war of 1879, Chilian territory did not lie 
 adjacent to that of Peru, and Chile never had any right 
 over possession of Tarapaca, Tacna and Arica; it asked the 
 cession of the first of these provinces because, alleging that 
 
 56
 
 Peru did not have the money to pay an indemnity to com- 
 pensate for the cost and the sacrifices imposed by the war, 
 the cession of Tarapaca represented this indemnity; this 
 was expressly stated by the Chilian Chancellor, Mel- 
 quiades Valderrama, in the circular directed to the diplo- 
 matic corps on the 10th of November, 1880, manifesting 
 the reasons which in his opinion occasioned the failure of 
 the negotiations of peace, which took place in Arica aboard 
 the American warship "Lakawana." 
 
 Be that as it may, Chile spent in the war against Peru 
 and Bolivia 17,000,000 pesos of 36d, that is 2,550,000 
 Pounds, and has received from Tarapaca through taxation 
 on the exportation of nitrate and iodine and for sale of 
 guano and nitrate lands, more than a hundred and thirty 
 millions pounds sterling. Therefore, they have been paid 
 the greatest indemnity it was possible to claim, the greatest 
 paid up to the present time, as the result of a war; nothing 
 is owing them, and in consequence, there is no reason for 
 the retention by Chile of territories which it claimed only 
 as a means of securing an indemnity which it believed 
 pertained to it as the victorious nation. 
 
 In harmony with the antecedents set forth and with the 
 principles proclaimed by your Excellency we take the 
 liberty of formulating the following petition: 
 
 1. — The annulment of the treaty of Ancon and a conse- 
 quent restitution to Peru of the territories of Tarapaca, 
 Tacna and Arica; 
 
 2. — That Chile be forced to grant the Peruvian resi- 
 dents in the indicated territories the guarantees accorded 
 by civilized nations, while restitution of these territories is 
 being effected. 
 
 (Follow more than one thousand signatures which cor- 
 respond to only a portion of the Peruvians expelled from 
 Tarapaca, Tacna and Arica, actually in Lima. These 
 signatures, in original, are being desposited in the United 
 States Legation.) 
 
 57
 
 PATRIOTIC PROTEST SIGNED BY THE NATIVES 
 OF TARAPACA, IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE 
 CHILIAN OCCUPATION. 
 
 ACT— IN THE NAME OF THE LORD. 
 
 The undersigned, natives of the department of Tarapaca, 
 Considering : 
 
 1st. — That as a result of the fratricide war sustained by the 
 republic of Chili against Peru, the first named government 
 pretends, as an absolute condition for the signature of peace, 
 the perpetual transfer of our department in order to form a 
 Chilian province, counting simple and exclusively with the 
 advantages that the instable good luck of arms has furnished ; 
 
 2nd. — That the great future reserved to the American Con- 
 tinent rests precisely in the peace and tranquility that must 
 prevail in all and each of the countries forming it, under 
 which benefactor shadow the ideas of material, moral and 
 intellectual progress that cause the prosperity of people, can 
 freely develop ; 
 
 3rd. — That the right of conquest that the Chilean nation 
 irrevocably pretends to establish in the International Ameri- 
 can Code, not only destroys from its basis the pillar on which 
 so far the independence of each one of the sovereign states 
 in which the continent is divided, has reposed, but that re- 
 moves far away and for ever the realization of a happy 
 future; said mournful right be accepted, in a short time 
 America would be converted into a vast military camp and its 
 natives with no other occupation than the handling of arms, 
 to protect the independence of their respective countries, or 
 to attack and enslave those whom they consider most fit for 
 their ambition; 
 
 4th. — That the Political Constitution of Peru, in force 
 when the war was commenced, in its article 2nd reads: "The 
 
 59
 
 Nation is free and independent and cannot sign any agree- 
 ment to oppose its independence or integrity or to affect in any 
 way its sovereignty" ; therefore, no government has the right, 
 which to the nation itself is denied, to celebrate agreements, 
 by any means, dismembering the national territory ; 
 
 5th. — That although in the Fundamental Constitution of 
 the State these principles of national integrity were not stipu- 
 lated, and a constituent congress should accept the exigencies 
 of the fortunate invader, making cession of our department to 
 save the independence of the remainder of Peru, a treaty un- 
 der such conditions would neither be acceptable for us; 
 
 6th. — That the department of Tarapaca was not obtained 
 by Peru by means of conquest, purchase or spontaneous 
 transfer, but as all the provinces of which the republic is 
 composed, contributed with the blood of its natives and all 
 kind of efforts to attain the national independence in the 
 bloody and long war that was necessary to sustain against its 
 secular oppressor the Spanish nation ; 
 
 7th. — That once Peru independent, its natives freely agreed 
 the union of its people in one only nation, to obtain the object 
 of all political association, declaring it as "One and indivis- 
 ible" ; 
 
 8th. — That if in the extremely unfortunate case, Peru is 
 bound to accept as legal a treaty with its invader in the condi- 
 tions demanded, no matter who it was and in whose name he 
 would act, breaking off thus "in fact" the social contract that 
 joins all the people that form the nation, we shall have the 
 most perfect right to consider ourselves loose from said con- 
 tract, and consequently free to make of our sovereignty the 
 use that may suit us best ; 
 
 9th. — That in case of an unexpected change which occur 
 frequently in politics, should it be necessary to consult by 
 means of a plebiscite, or in any other way, the will of the in- 
 habitants of our department, to determine if it may or not 
 
 60
 
 form an integral portion of the Chilian territory, it is our 
 duty to declare at once, that said consultation shall not be ac- 
 cepted by us if it is not proposed only to the natives of the 
 department, excluding absolutely any person not being born 
 within its territory. 
 
 For all these and any other considerations resulting from 
 our most perfect and indestructible right; We protest before 
 all nations of America and the whole world in our name, in 
 the name of our sons and in that of the future generations; 
 
 1st. — Not to recognize nor accept as valid any treaty that 
 Peru may sign in which it be stipulated the transfer of our 
 department to Chili or to any other State, no matter what 
 Peruvian government may sign it or the source from which 
 its authority may spring; 
 
 2nd. — Should the event foreseen in the former clause occur, 
 we shall reassume our natural right of sovereignty to put it 
 into force how and when it may suit us best, in which case 
 we shall "in fact" remain free from the social contract that 
 joins us to Peru ; 
 
 3rd. — Not to accept the appeal to obtain the assentment of 
 the inhabitants of our department, if the opinion is not sub- 
 mitted exclusively to the citizens born in their territory, who 
 are the only ones that can dispose of their future destiny, and 
 that it will take place with absolute freedom ; 
 
 4th. — To remain faithful to Peruvian laws, paying sub- 
 mission to the resolutions of the legal authorities, and follow- 
 ing the common future reserved to Peru in the actual or in 
 any other emergency, so long as the principle of territorial in- 
 tegrity established in the Fundamental Constitution of the 
 State, is not violated. 
 
 To agree in its opportunity the way to put into force these 
 resolutions giving them proper publicity, in conformity with 
 the events that may develop. 
 
 61
 
 We implore the protection of the Lord to keep aloft from 
 our country and from America the catastrophies that seem to 
 agglomerate upon the continent ; and to avoid us the sacrifices 
 of all kind which we should be compelled to face in protection 
 of our most venerated rights. 
 
 Tarapaca, January 1884. 
 
 G. Arredondo, Felipe B. Romero, Pedro J. Zavala, B. 
 Morales Bermudez, E. Ossio, Romulo Penaranda, Manuel J. 
 de Loayza, Juan E. Albarracin, Ildefonso de Loayza, Bruno 
 Quiroga, Alejo Mollo, Desiderio C. de Loayza, M. Rodri- 
 guez, Jose Mamani, Emilio R. Albarracin, Ciriaco Oviedo 
 Veliz, Felipe C. Higueras, Claudio C. Albarracin, Manuel 
 Mamani, Maximiliano Saavedra, Jose R. Molina, Belisario 
 Santibanez, Alberto Santibanez, Viconte E. Rocha, Mariano 
 Alcedan, Manuel R. Rodriguez, Juan C. Albarracin, Manuel 
 Amas, Luis M. Rodriguez, Guillermo R. Rodriguez, Fer- 
 nando Calvo, G. Blackadder, J. Oswaldo Aguirre, Angel C. 
 Beas, Jose Manuel Butron, Rojelio Beas, Andres Flores, J. 
 Gregorio, R. Quiroga, Jorge, Garate, Olegario Rios, Segundo 
 Barreda, Gregorio H. Okay, Exequiel Barreda, Jose Cabezas, 
 Vicente Liendo. 
 
 The signatures of all the natives of the department, follow. 
 
 62
 
 PATRIOTIC PROTEST SIGNED BY NATIVES OF 
 TACNA AND ARICA, IMMEDIATELY AFTER 
 THE CHILIAN OCCUPATION. 
 
 The undersigned, natives of the Provinces of Tacna and 
 Arica, Considering: 
 
 First. — That for the purpose of putting an end to the war, 
 waged between our country and the Republic of Chile, a 
 treaty of peace has been ratified, in which the latter nation 
 demands as an indispensable condition the possession for a 
 period of ten years of the Provinces of Tacna and Arica, with 
 the proviso that at the end of this term popular opinion must 
 be consulted in order to ascertain through this medium 
 whether said Provinces are to form an integral part of Peru 
 or remain definitely annexed to Chili. 
 
 Second. — That this would signify to Peru the loss of two 
 provinces that are solidly united to her by powerful ties of 
 common interest and historic traditions. 
 
 Third. — That the temporary possession of the Provinces of 
 Tacna and Arica, although for a limited period, constitutes 
 an attack on the integrity of Peruvian territory, an integrity 
 permanently guaranteed by our Constitution, and which the 
 will of the Nation is always ready to defend. 
 
 Fourth. — That the Republic of Chili has no title whatso- 
 ever to justify its pretensions over the Provinces of Tacna and 
 Arica, because the victories obtained by her armies, by no 
 means, can make her claim legitimate to the retention of the 
 Provinces. 
 
 Fifth. — That if a treaty has been suscribed to, such an 
 instrument has only been entered into on the part of Peru, 
 due to the force of the hard oppression exercized by the 
 Chilian armies, such being consequently null and everything 
 therein stipulated worthless. 
 
 63
 
 Sixth. — That Peru although obliged by Chilian arms, 
 cannot transfer the inprescriptible rights of collective per- 
 sonalities in benefit of a nation alien by its institutions, to our 
 customs and inveterate traditions, although such a transfer- 
 ence were even temporary. 
 
 Seventh. — That the treaty having been ratified, and on the 
 termination of the period of ten years occupation therein es- 
 tablished, the will of the Provinces in question must be con- 
 sulted in order to decide to which of the respective Nations 
 they desire to belong to ; the natives of those districts are the 
 only parties having the right to resolve their future in ac- 
 cordance with their own rights. 
 
 For these and many other reasons they agreed: 
 
 First. — To solemnly protest regarding the clause of the 
 treaty wherein was stipulated the possession of our Provinces 
 for ten years by the Republic of Chili, because the clause in 
 question is entirely opposed to the absolute principles of 
 patriotic honour, reason and justice upon which the precepts 
 of international right are based. 
 
 Second. — To remain faithful to the Peruvian nation ac- 
 cepting its laws, recognizing its legitimate authorities, sup- 
 porting the taxes imposed upon us, and always united to 
 Peru our country, to run together the same fate in the 
 future. 
 
 Third. — Not to recognize as valid the resolution referred 
 to in the article of the above-mentioned treaty, but only and 
 exclusively the free expressed will of the citizens born in our 
 Provinces. 
 
 Fourth. — To take as many measures as possible conducive 
 to the realization of the former resolutions, publishing the 
 present in order that its contents may become known all over 
 the Republic and by all the Nations. 
 
 Tacna, March 10th, 1884. 
 
 64
 
 Bruno J. Vargas, Gregorio Bustios, F. Saturnino Bustios, 
 Rigoberto Molina, Miguel J. Zavala, Jose M. Herrera, Dr. 
 Monge Ledesma, Dr. Guillermo MacLean, Juan MacLean, 
 Luis B. Arce, Enrique Forero, Manuel M. Forero, Manuel 
 Cornejo, Carlos Basadre y Forero, Jose R. Pizarro, Neptali 
 J. G. Zavala, J. Oviedo, E. Allende, Guillermo Vera Re- 
 venga, Fortunato Osorio, A. Albarracin, P. L. Sotomayor, 
 Jose S. Bustios, Javier Aquiles Mendes, Carlos Zapata, Julio 
 F. Galvez, Aristides G. Vigil, Manuel T. Maria, Juan R. 
 Stevenson, Federico Arias y Delgado, J. E. Barron, Juan de 
 la Rosa Plaza, Lorenzo Infantas, Carlos Forero, Pedro J. 
 Portocarrero, Adan Vargas, Federico Vargas, Enrique Landa, 
 Felipe Landa, S. Vargas, Alfredo Valle-Riestra, Pedro 
 Linares, Milciades Cornejo, Lucas Paniagua, F. M. Baluarte, 
 Valeriano Albarracin. 
 
 The signatures of all the natives of the department, follow. 
 
 65
 
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