MEXICO.                              
   767

                          [Iclosure -1 in No. 191.-Translation.]

                       [From-the Diario0OfIcial. August 16, 1874.J
                               "THAT IS A LIE."


  Under this heading the Monitor says:
  "The American journals do not bite their tongues to tell lies.
  "The Commercial Herald recently published one of those sensational
items which
so much please our neighbors, which item has been republished, with extensive
com-
ments, by their colleagues on the other side of the Bravo. According to this
article
the Mexican government has made propositions to the United States for a cession
of
our States of Nuevo-Leon, Coahuila, Sonora, a part of Cinaloa, part of Durango,
and
the Territory of Lower California.
  "The Mexican people have always regarded with indignation any idea
of. a cession
of a part, even an inch, of its territory, and to-day the public man who
should propose
such a thing would not even be judged as a criminal, but we should hand him
over to
the medical fraternity as a case of extreme lunacy.
  "Such is our conviction; such is the conviction of &.1Mexicans.
Nevertheless, that
the lie may have a stronger denial, we ask our c6lleague, the Diario, to
tell us, not what
there is, but what there can be in this matter."
  We have seen the article to which the Monitor makes reference, copied by
the Alta
California, of San Francisco, and, perhaps, by other American journals; but
we had
not thought it necessary to say anything about it, because of the ridiculous
and ex-
travagant idea which itcontains. This government has not made nor will it
ever
admit propositions for parting with a single jot of the territory of the
nation.



                          [Iuclosure 2 in No. 191.-Translatipn.]

                       [From the Diario Oficial, September 30, 1874.1

 THE REPORTED NEGOTIATIONS FOR A SALE OF PART OF THE MEXICAN
                                  TERRITORY.

   Our readers will doubtless remember that the Commercial Herald, of San
Francisco,
 Cal., gave currency a few months since to a sensational report, stating
that the govern-
 ment of Mexico had opened negotiations with the United States, which had
for their
 object a cession to that country of a considerable part of Mexican territory;
and they
 will also remember that the Monitor, first, and afterward the Diario and
all the press,
 declared that this report was absolutely without foundation. Well, then,
as was to be
 expected, several European periodicals reproduced the article from the Commercial
 Herald, and reproduced it, too, without any correction, perhaps because,
not having
 received at the time the Mexican papers, they were not aware that the matter
had
 been positively denied. This gave occasion to several agents of the republic
abroad
 to make corrections, which, we are pleased to say, almost all the editors
to whom they
 were sent hastened, with the greatest willingness, to publish. But among
these editors
 there were two who absolutely refused to make known the truth to their readers;
we
 refer to the Times, and Daily Telegraph, of London. This last paper did
not confine
 itself to republishing the article of the Commercial Herald, but was pleased
to em-
 bellish it by adding information of its own invention, to the effect that
the negotia-
 tions opened by the Mexican government, for the purpose indicated, coincided
with
 other negotiations begun in London with the bondholders by the representatives
of
 the same government. In the opinion of this daily, the principal object
of Mexico
 was to obtain, by these means, resources for its exhausted treasury.
   Mr. Ignacio de Ibarrondo, private commercial agent of the republic in
that capital,
 and Mr. Pablo Martinez del Campo, who holds a similar position in Liverpool,
sent to
 the said periodical the letters which our readers will see at the end of
this article;
 but, as we have said, the editor of the Daily Telegraph refused to publish
them. Mr.
 Ibarrondo Wrote to the Times, whose editor likewise refused to receive his
letter. For-
 tunately there were not wanting impartial journals in the capital of Great
Britain,
 and the Daily News has made the desired publication.
   As it may be seen, the publication of Mr. Ibarrondo's letter gave occasion
to tbe
 secretary of the committee of Mexican bondholders to venture to affirm that
negotia-
 tions were being had between the said committee and the government of Mexico
for
 the arrangement of the debt. This is absolutely false. Up t~o the present
time the
 only thing that has occurred is that these same interested parties, some
themselves, and