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The omissions and inexactitudes of the government of General Barrios, in its statements to the President of the United States, as well as its other acts concerning the question of limits with Mexico, show its policy upon this subject to be entirely lacking in sincerity and frankness.
The facts briefly noted in this memorandum, and others which can not here be mentioned, authorize the suspicion that the said government, in addressing the President of the United States, has not really desired, as was pretended, to obtain the decision of an arbitrator upon the question of limits. It is very certain that it can not be ignorant of the impossibility for Mexico to admit any discussion of the rights she has to Chiapas and Socouusco, forming as they have done for many years a State of the Union, an integral part of the republic, and that it also understands how impossible it is to fix the limits between this State and Guatemala, before surveying the region in dispute, whoever may be the arbitrator charged to render such decision.
The object, then, in pretending to promote an arbitration, can not be other than to gain time, as on former occasions, to continue the partial invasions and enervate the action of the Mexican Government in the simple defense of the national territory.
The undersigned, in order to place upon record the facts of the interview with the Honorable Minister Morgan, and the observations to which the note of the Hon. Mr. Blaine give occasion, has drawn up the present memorandum, which he signs for due evidence thereof.
Mexico, July 25, 1881.
