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Before entering upon the examination of the project of limits, I ought to reply to a charge unjustly made against the Republic of Mexico, attributing to its reluctance the delays experienced in this important business. From 1825 until the present day, Mexico has constantly proposed the immediate tracing of the limits. This appears from the notes of Mr. Alaman and the protocols of Messrs. Manuel Diez de Bonilla and Juan Nepomuceno de Pereda, envoys of Mexico in that republic. Guatemala, on the contrary, has ever avoided the tracing of limits, desiring the maintenance of the statu quo, and thus postponing indefinitely the solution of so important an affair.
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These official documents fully prove who has been at fault in this delay. Mexico has constantly sought for the tracing of the limits, which she has considered as the only means of closing the door against claims which, though perchance of slight importance at the outset, are magnified by the lapse of time into affairs of great moment. Guatemala, on the contrary, has constantly refused the tracing of limits, and has always labored for the preservation of the statu quo, thus leaving open a wide door for quarrels between private individuals, which subsequently become conflicts be-
session of Chiapas and Soconnsco. The most apparent is, that the constitution of the Mexican Republic enumerates Chiapas (including Soconusco) among the States of the Union. Consequently there is a constitutional impediment, quite unsurmountable, for the Government of Mexico to discuss, before an arbitration or otherwise, the untimely question now raised by Guatemala. She urges that the said government, to gratify some long-cherished fancies of Guatemalan politicians, should submit to trample upon the national constitution (and forget its dignity) by discussing, without any authority to do so, a point settled alike by that instrument and by time, the great legitimator of all possessions in the world, even when their title is less clear than that of Mexico to her present State of Chiapas.
