trary to the Constitution and the laws, "de Facto" officials, created by a decree of the Executive, which can well be called a partial "coup d'etat." The tradition of our democracy is essentially municipal as a people of Spanish origin which the Nicaraguan people is. It is inconceivable that there can be fair elections when the original organs of democracy were corrupted and destroyed. The obstacles which the usurping officials placed in the way of the victory of the Conservative majority were innumerable. Withal, through devotion to a far-reaching work of which the party considers itself the founder, we went to the polls in order to pave the way of the Republic in its evolutive march.

In order that peace may be a possession of all, real for the masses and beneficial for society, it must be developed within the bounds of order, which run parallel on the respect of the governed for authority, and on the justice of the governors toward everyone and toward all the citizens. The Conservative Party in its character of opposition has fulfilled in the most rigorous manner the part which belongs to it in the maintenance of that balance of order. It has given its respect to authority and to the laws of the Nation. But from the other side there has not been given to it that which belongs to it through the obligation of justice in which authority is established, and it has constantly been molested, its citizens being denied the individual guarantees which our Fundamental Charter grants them.

Immediately after the Electoral Mission had taken its departure, as if to exhibit the failure of a system, with the impossibility that the aforesaid Mission could effectively guarantee the citizens who are opposed on any grounds to the opinions of the Executive, although it is done according to the forms of law, Conservative citizens have been persecuted, imprisoned, and deported, among them candidates of the Party in the last elections and members of this National and Legal Board of Directors.

Without proceeding in any way according to legal procedure, without respecting the rules which the constitutions of all free and civilized peoples have laid down for reducing a citizen to prison, Conservatives have been seen continually arriving at the penitentiary as criminals without crimes, prisoners by governmental orders emanating from the Commander in Chief, as if martial law were in force. This movement of honorable citizens who enter and leave the prisons without sentence being passed and by arbitrary mandate can only fill society with uneasiness. Peace continues unchangeable, but the calm which must be its child and companion has taken its leave of the Conservatives, who cannot devote themselves to their tasks, because they feel themselves within the risk of the action without reason of the authority. With the Conservative Party, which comprises so

large a part of the Republic, thus harassed, its ill-being will end by disquieting and afflicting the entire Nicaraguan society.

In order to explain such imprisonments and deportations without form of judgment and without hearing those accused, there is talk of conspiracies with criminal inclinations toward an attempt against individuals determined on. The history of the Conservative Party constitutes a precedent which by itself refutes such accusations. Neither in the times in which the Party has suffered the most persecutions, nor when guarantees for life and property were lacking, nor when the families were persecuted and life was impossible did Conservatism give consideration to thoughts of that kind, and it always refrained from criminal transactions even to free itself from any kind of tyranny.

In the presence of these events the National and Legal Board of Directors of the Conservative Party, which at present directs its political destinies and which is its official organ, has felt itself obliged to make before the Nicaraguan people the following declaration of the intentions of the Party and of the protest at the mutilation of its rights:

The Conservative Party insists that it will not deviate a bit in its pacific intentions. It will be a factor for the maintenance of public peace while this rests on the system along which the Republic travels on the axis of the institutions of rotation in office and of free polls.

The Conservative Party protests against the lying accusations that it is fomenting banditry or has understandings with it. All Nicaragua knows what the origin of this evil is and the efforts which Conservatism made when it was in power to attain a complete re-establishment of peace.

The Conservative Party denies as insulting and slanderous every accusation which may be directed against it in the attempt to exhibit it as a participant in traitorous plans and in every kind of criminal attempts against those who exercise the High Powers of the Republic. The Conservative Party protests at the unjustified persecutions of which some of its honorable citizens are victims, who have been reduced to prison and banished from the territory of the Republic illegally and against all right, driving them from their homes, without submitting them to judicial procedure, and violating the laws and the Constitution of the Republic.

MANAGUA, December 14, 1930.

ADOLFO DIAZ, EMILIANO CHAMORRO, CARLOS CUADRA PASOS, N. LACAYO, F. GUZMAN, C. RIVERS D., G. REYES MONTEALEGRE, D. CALERO B., LUIS ELIZONDO, ISMAEL SOLÓRZANO, ALEJ. CARDENAS, JOSÉ MARÍA SIERO, H. ZUNIGA PADILLA, D. STADTHAGEN

(There are lacking more signatures which have not been collected.)

817.00/6901

The Secretary of State to the Minister in Nicaragua (Hanna) No. 108

WASHINGTON, January 3, 1931. SIR: The Department refers to your personal letters of November 28 and December 4, 1930, to Assistant Secretary of State Francis White, and your despatch No. 270 of December 16, 1930, and their respective enclosures, relating to the arrest and deportation, apparently for political reasons, of members of the Conservative Party and others in Nicaragua. The acts described in these communications indicate a tendency in the administration of government by President Moncada which, if persisted in, may well defeat the broader constructive efforts in which he is engaged.

You are requested, therefore, to say to President Moncada orally and in a most friendly manner, stating that you do so by my direction, that this Government is much concerned by the situation you have reported. It is, of course, imperative that the Government of Nicaragua exercise all proper diligence in the suppression of seditious activities, but it is believed that this end can be served by the usual methods of vigilance and detention for proper cause, without resorting to general arrests and deportations upon hearsay or mere suspicion. In this connection, you may point out that President Moncada's recent message to Congress touches upon a fact of much importance with respect to the problem under discussion. It was formerly very generally asserted that the presence of a small detachment of United States Marines in Managua from 1912 to 1925 constituted an effective barrier between the established Governments and those who might have desired to effect their overthrow, and it may safely be assumed at present that, as stated by him, those who might otherwise resort to violence in opposition to his administration are restrained from such action because of the military cooperation now extended to the Government of Nicaragua by the United States. It is the opinion of this Government that its active military cooperation with the established Government of Nicaragua makes it necessary for it to assure itself that the Nicaraguan Government should not, in the enjoyment of its immunity to serious attack from within, undertake measures against its political opponents which are open to the charge of being of a retaliatory or unjustifiably oppressive nature. You may say to President Moncada that I have directed you to express the request that within the limits imposed by his recognized obligation to safeguard his person and his administration, political arrests and deportations of the nature described be discontinued, and the ordinary processes of law be substituted in dealing with those against whom legitimate cause for suspicion is found to exist.

Very truly yours,

H. L. STIMSON

AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND NICARAGUA REGARDING TRANSPORTATION FOR UNITED STATES ARMY EN. GINEERS AND SURVEY OF A RAILROAD ROUTE

817.812/522

The Chargé in Nicaragua (Beaulac) to the Secretary of State No. 1317

MANAGUA, February 11, 1930. [Received February 17.]

SIR: With reference to the Department's telegram No. 17 of February 7, 5 P.M.," concerning a proposed agreement under which the Nicaraguan Government would grant free transportation to the United States Army Engineers in Nicaragua in return for which the latter would carry out a survey of a rail route from Lake Nicaragua to the Atlantic Coast, I have the honor to transmit herewith copies of the notes referring to this agreement exchanged between the Legation and the Foreign Office together with a translation of the Foreign Office's note.

It will be observed that the arrangement outlined in the Legation's note No. 14, of February 8, 1930, referred to, and concurred in by the Nicaraguan Government in its note of February 10, 1930, in reply, is that outlined by the Legation in its telegram No. 4 of January 8, 3 P.M.,46 and agreed to by the Department in its telegram No. 17 of February 7, 5. P.M.

Since information concerning the proposed agreement had reached the Nicaraguan press from Washington, the Minister of Foreign Affairs asked me if I had any objection to his releasing the notes for publication locally and I told him that I had none. He told me that he would have immediate instructions issued to the Railroad in accordance with the terms of the arrangement reached.

I have [etc.]

WILLARD L. BEAULAC

[Enclosure 1]

The American Chargé (Beaulac) to the Nicaraguan Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs (Cordero Reyes)

No. 14

MANAGUA, February 8, 1930. EXCELLENCY: I have the honor to refer to a recent conversation with Your Excellency concerning a proposed agreement between the Government of Nicaragua and the Government of the United States of America under which the Government of Nicaragua will grant to the United States Army Engineers engaged in conducting a survey of the Nicaragua Canal Route free transportation over the railroad and lake steamers belonging to the Pacific Railroad of Nicaragua, in "Not printed.

return for which those engineers will carry out a survey of a rail route from Lake Nicaragua to the Atlantic Coast via the San Juan River Valley and make such survey available to the Government of Nicaragua. In accordance with the understanding reached in our conversation I have the honor to suggest the following as the terms of the agreement between the two Governments:

(1) The Government of Nicaragua agrees to grant to the United States Army Engineers engaged in conducting a survey of the Nicaragua Canal Route free transportation of men and supplies on the railroad and lake steamers belonging to the Pacific Railroad of Nicaragua during the period they have been and will be engaged in their present work in Nicaragua.

(2) In return for this exemption the Army Engineers referred to will carry out in connection with their present duties a survey of a rail route from Lake Nicaragua to the Atlantic Coast via the San Juan River Valley and make such survey available to the Government of Nicaragua. Accept [etc.]

[Enclosure 2-Translation]

WILLARD L. BEAULAC

The Nicaraguan Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs (Cordero Reyes) to the American Chargé (Beaulac)

No. 17

MANAGUA, February 10, 1930. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Note No. 14 of February 8, 1930, with reference to a proposed agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of Nicaragua under which the latter will grant to the United States Army Engineers engaged in conducting a survey of the Nicaragua Canal Route free transportation over the railroad and lake steamers belonging to the Pacific Railroad of Nicaragua, in return for which those Engineers will carry out for the Government of Nicaragua a survey of a rail route from Lake Nicaragua to the Atlantic Coast via the San Juan River Valley.

In reply, I beg to state to you that my Government accepts with the greatest pleasure the agreement referred to as outlined in Paragraphs (1) and (2) of the note to which I reply.

Accept [etc.]

M. CORDERO REYES

BOUNDARY DISPUTE WITH HONDURAS

(See volume I, pages 361 ff.)