Why was the road not built and who was responsible? (Part 2)

In 1863, the treaty "games" continued between Great Britain and Guatemala; in August of 1863 an additional Convention was signed.  This convention committed Britain to ask its Parliament to approve £50,000 which would be paid to Guatemala for a road that would be constructed over a four year period.    Guatemala agreed to accept the £50,000 as a full discharge of Britain’s obligations under Article 7 but final rectifications were to be completed within six months.

It happened that Guatemala was at war with El Salvador and no further steps were taken to ratify the additional convention.  Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Lord Russell was asked whether the ratification could be postponed for a year.   It appears that Lord Russell had given Guatemala’s Foreign Minister the impression that the time would be extended and it was.  In 1865, slight changes were made to the Convention’s wording and in 1866, Martin wrote to Lord Clarendon who had then succeeded Lord Russell and informed him that Guatemala had ratified the Convention.   Unfortunately, the Foreign Office was now in the hands of one Lord Stanley who agreed with the Colonial Office and the British Treasury that the Convention should be allowed to "lapse".

In response to Guatemala’s Foreign Minister, Martin, Lord Stanley informed Martin that his British Government considered that Guatemala failed to ratify the Convention within the specified time.  Stanley also cited Britain’s other reason being Guatemala’s decision to add new declarations to the Convention.   It is also known that Britain’s Permanent Under- Secretary at the Foreign Office, one Hammond felt that if Article 7 of the 1859 Treaty were set aside, Guatemala would be justified in holding that the whole treaty fell to the ground, thus reopening the boundary question.

In December, 1866, an official letter from Guatemala declared that Article 7 had been included as compensation to Guatemala for the abandonment of the territorial rights to Belize and it suggested that a new Convention could be signed by Martin.    This led Lord Stanley to immediately deny Guatemala’s claims, that it made any cession to Britain and added that the 1863 Convention had merely engaged the British Government to ask Parliament for £50,000.  There had been no guarantee that the British Parliament would have granted this in 1864 and there was still less reason to believe that it would in 1867.   This statement by the British Foreign Secretary was somewhat extraordinary and did not bear close examination although it remained the official view for seventeen years!

It was clear that the British Government had contracted a moral obligation by accepting Article 7 of the 1859 Treaty and that she had not thoroughly tried to implement its conditions.  Moreover, although the treaty was not and never could be regarded as a treaty of cession by the British Government, Guatemala understood it as cession and the British negotiator certainly regarded Article 7 as the inducement which persuaded Guatemala to sign it.

(What will the ICJ consider it to have been?)   

By 1869 the Guatemalan Government had raised a loan which it was prepared to use for its share of the road construction and the question of building the road was reopened.   Lennox Wyke insisted that the additional Convention had not been ratified because Guatemala had never had the funds or the intention of carrying out its obligations and that Guatemala was in a weak position.

(Can we trust what Wyke is saying by knowing what he has said in other discussions with Guatemala’s ambassador?)

The Foreign Office refused to move from its position adopted by Lord Stanley in November, 1869 and it repeated that the Convention had failed through Guatemala’s fault alone.

(Having read all articles, do you believe Britain’s Foreign Office that Guatemala alone was at fault?)

Guatemala renewed its claim to the territory of Belize but the claim was not seriously raised again until some 50 years later.   And let’s not forget that in 1862, the British Government made Belize a British Colony under the authority of the Governor of Jamaica.   On May 12th, 1862, Frederick Seymour became Lieutenant –Governor of the colony of British Honduras. 

Some funny business:  Palmerston told the Ambassador at Madrid that if any objection were raised it would be stated that Britain had held the settlement by right of conquest since 1798 and that Spain no longer had any rights on the American continent.   The Colonial Office was hesitant about Palmerston’s strategy and Palmerston agreed not to communicate with Spain but to wait and see if Spain would make any objections to the constitutional changes for the colony.   Spain did not!

The haunting question is who was more right than the other – not who was right because it is clear that the British were sloppy in handling the 1859 Treaty and Article 7 with Guatemala.  Even if its engineer felt that the road was going to cost some £145,000, wasn’t that a drop in the bucket to pay in consideration that the British had raped the colony of all its timber from as early as the 1700s and made millions of Sterling Pounds?  Also, what about the mere £50,000?   The British had the opportunity on more than one occasion to own the settlement in the 1700s and later in the 1800s and they screwed up.  

Next week I will share my opinion with you based on the history of British and Spanish rule in the Caribbean and Central America.