revenge nor passion should have a place in the new government. Until
there is complete tranquillity in the island and a stable government
inaugurated military occupation will be continued.

With the one exception of the rupture with Spain, the intercourse of
the United States with the great family of nations has been marked with
cordiality, and the close of the eventful year finds most of the issues
that necessarily arise in the complex relations of sovereign states
adjusted or presenting no serious obstacle to a just and honorable
solution by amicable agreement.

A long unsettled dispute as to the extended boundary between the
Argentine Republic and Chile, stretching along the Andean crests from
the southern border of the Atacama Desert to Magellan Straits, nearly a
third of the length of the South American continent, assumed an acute
stage in the early part of the year, and afforded to this Government
occasion to express the hope that the resort to arbitration, already
contemplated by existing conventions between the parties, might prevail
despite the grave difficulties arising in its application. I am happy to
say that arrangements to this end have been perfected, the questions of
fact upon which the respective commissioners were unable to agree being
in course of reference to Her Britannic Majesty for determination.
A residual difference touching the northern boundary line across the
Atacama Desert, for which existing treaties provided no adequate
adjustment, bids fair to be settled in like manner by a joint
commission, upon which the United States minister at Buenos Ayres has
been invited to serve as umpire in the last resort.

I have found occasion to approach the Argentine Government with a view
to removing differences of rate charges imposed upon the cables of an