ment that the Belligerent Nations consider the terms under which the war might be terminated and the guarantees each considers necessary to avoid its repetition, or renewal in the future.

The enormous sacrifices which are occasioned to the whole world by the present war, which is, without question, the greatest and most destructive recorded in human history, is an argument in favor of the opportuneness of all movements for peace suggested at whatever time, and Your Excellency's Government will receive the credit for the attempt, no matter what definite results may be obtained.

The Government of Honduras desires to express to the illustrious Government of the United States, through the medium of Your Excellency, its high appreciation of that Government's attitude in favor of peace, as expressed in the note to which I have made reference. Thanking Your Excellency for the terms in which you were pleased to address to me the document mentioned,

I take, etc.,

MARIANO VASQUEZ.

Minister Caldwell to the Secretary of State.

[Telegram-Paraphrase.]

AMERICAN LEGATION, Teheran, January 19, 1917.

Mr. Caldwell transmits at request of the Persian Minister for Foreign Affairs the more important portion of the reply to the peace suggestions of the President of the United States, as follows:

The Minister for Foreign Affairs acknowledges receipt of the circular note of the President of the United States, which was communicated by the American Minister.

The Persian Government appreciates and would help in this high-minded step. In associating themselves with this plea they earnestly hope it will bear fruit. The Government of the United States. knows that when the flames of war were kindled the Persian Government declared its neutrality and sought to maintain it.

It was a matter of real distress to the Imperial Government to see the conflagration spread over the important parts of its territory, which, because of her slight powers of resistance, has become almost unbearable and has inflicted upon Persia moral and material prejudice and losses.

The Persian Government feels sure that the advantages and blessings of peace can be obtained only after measures have been taken to guarantee neutral powers in the future against recurrence of such aggressions.

The interest and concern shown by the President to adopt measures to secure the peace of the world in the future and improve the condition of neutral powers and protect weak nations against the encroachments of more powerful nations inspire the Persian nation with the confidence that all neutral states will hasten to take advantage of this declaration, and it hopes they will be admitted to take their part in the negotiations and ultimate arrangements of the world peace. In this way they will be in position to uphold their political independence and the inviolability of their rights and privileges.

The Government notes with pleasure the President's desire to concur and his determination to coöperate in the achievement of this object and expresses its gratitude for his pledge of support to this end.

The note is signed by the Persian Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister.

Minister McMillin to the Secretary of State.

AMERICAN LEGATION, Lima, January 20, 1917.

1

SIR: Referring to Department's circular cablegrams of December 18 and 20 regarding peace; my dispatch of December 26, 1916, and my telegram of January 19,1 4 p. m., I have the honor to report:

That, as indicated in my dispatch of December 26, 1916, I delivered Department's circular cablegram of December 18 to the Peruvian Minister for Foreign Affairs. As reported in my cable of January 19, 4 p. m., I received from the Peruvian Minister for Foreign Affairs the reply of the Peruvian Government to the peace proposition embraced in Department's circular telegram of December 18. I send herewith a literal copy in Spanish and also the English translation thereof.

It has been an honor to me to receive Your Excellency's note of December 20, last, in which, by instructions of your Government, 1 Not printed.

Your Excellency was pleased to transmit to me a copy of the communication that the Honorable Secretary of State, in the name of the President of the United States, has sent to the nations which form the Entente in the European War, insinuating to them that an immediate opportunity be sought for all the belligerent countries to make known their ideas on the condition under which an end can be put to the War and a satisfactory guarantee be reached against the renewal of it or against the breaking out of new wars in the future; a communication which is substantially like that directed to the Central Powers, accepting the modifications expressed in the same note of Your Excellency.

I have read with the greatest care and have made known to the President of the Republic the important communication of the Honorable Mr. Lansing, which reveals at first sight the noble motive that has inspired it. My Government, on being acquainted with it, makes the most sincere wishes that the initiative of President Wilson may produce the results sought with regard to the reëstablishment of peace, and holds the idea of the American Government and people on the necessity of procuring, if possible, the future tranquillity of the world and is firm in the interest manifested for the means that urgently must be adopted to free the smallest and weakest nations from the danger of injustice and violence to which they are exposed. The moment having arrived which the Government of the United States considers opportune to give practical form to those very noble purposes, which after reëstablishing normal conditions will tend toward the reign of Peace by Justice, Peru will lend to them her most active sympathy, consistent with its traditions and with the sound doctrines. to whose service she has always put her most devoted efforts.

May Your Excellency deign to transmit to your Government the gratefulness of mine for the very valuable information which it has been pleased to give; and accept, etc.,

E. DE LA RIVA AGUERO.

PART XII.

PRESIDENT WILSON'S ADDRESS OF JANUARY 22, 1917.

Memorandum to the German Embassy.'

The Secretary of State presents his compliments to the Imperial German Ambassador and has the honor to inclose for his information a copy of the address delivered by the President of the United States to the Senate thereof on January 22, 1917.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, January 22, 1917.

[Inclosure.]

ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT TO THE SENATE OF THE

UNITED STATES, 22 JANUARY, 1917.

GENTLEMEN OF THE SENATE:

On the eighteenth of December last I addressed an identic note. to the governments of the nations now at war requesting them to state, more definitely than they had yet been stated by either group of belligerents, the terms upon which they would deem it possible to make peace. I spoke on behalf of humanity and of the rights of all neutral nations like our own, many of whose most vital interests the war puts in constant jeopardy. The Central Powers united in a reply which stated merely that they were ready to meet their antagonists in conference to discuss terms of peace. The Entente Powers have replied much more definitely and have stated, in general terms, indeed, but with sufficient definiteness to imply details, the arrangements, guarantees, and acts of reparation which they deem to be the indispensable conditions of a satisfactory settlement. We are that much nearer a definite discussion of the peace which shall end the present war. We are that much nearer the discussion of the international concert which must thereafter hold the world at peace. In every discussion of the peace that must end this war it is taken

1 1 Same, mutatis mutandis, to other Missions in United States.

for granted that that peace must be followed by some definite concert of power which will make it virtually impossible that any such catastrophe should ever overwhelm us again. Every lover of mankind, every sane and thoughtful man must take that for granted.

I have sought this opportunity to address you because I thought that I owed it to you, as the council associated with me in the final determination of our international obligations, to disclose to you without reserve the thought and purpose that have been taking form in my mind in regard to the duty of our Government in the days to come when it will be necessary to lay afresh and upon a new plan the foundations of peace among the nations.

It is inconceivable that the people of the United States should play no part in that great enterprise. To take part in such a service will be the opportunity for which they have sought to prepare themselves by the very principles and purposes of their polity and the approved practices of their Government ever since the days when they set up a new nation in the high and honorable hope that it might in all that it was and did show mankind the way to liberty. They cannot in honor withhold the service to which they are now about to be challenged. They do not wish to withhold it. But they owe it to themselves and to the other nations of the world to state the conditions under which they will feel free to render it.

That service is nothing less than this, to add their authority and their power to the authority and force of other nations to guarantee peace and justice throughout the world. Such a settlement can not now be long postponed. It is right that before it comes this Government should frankly formulate the conditions upon which it would feel justified in asking our people to approve its formal and solemn adherence to a League for Peace. I am here to attempt to state those conditions.

The present war must first be ended; but we owe it to candor and to a just regard for the opinion of mankind to say that, so far as our participation in guarantees of future peace is concerned, it makes a great deal of difference in what way and upon what terms it is ended. The treaties and agreements which bring it to an end must embody terms which will create a peace that is worth guaranteeing and preserving, a peace that will win the approval of mankind, not merely peace that will serve the several interests and immediate aims of the nations engaged. We shall have no voice in determining what those terms shall be, but we shall, I feel sure, have a voice in determining whether they shall be made lasting or not by the guarantees of a universal covenant; and our judgment upon what is fundamental and essential as a condition precedent to permanency should be spoken now, not afterwards when it may be too late.

No covenant of coöperative peace that does not include the peoples