GUATEMALAN CLAIM TO BRITISH HONDURAS

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25440, 11 March 1948, Page 6

GUATEMALAN CLAIM TO BRITISH HONDURAS

DISPUTED COLONY

[By a Special Correspondent in "The Times."] (Reprinted by arrangement.) ,

The Guatemalan claim to, that oblong ol British territory, about the size of Wales, which adjoins her northeastern border has just acquired great prominence because of reports that irresponsible elements in Guatemala may invade the colony. The whole question opens up a romantic page of imperial history. For Guatemala’s original title-deeds, siich as they are, one must go back to the end of the fifteenth century. Shortly, after the discovery of the Bay of Fonduras (the Deeps), by Columbus, the Treaty of Tordesillas drew up a line bf demarcation between Portuguese and Spanish exploration which eventually gave Central America, as yet undiscovered, to his Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain. The conquests of Alvarado spread a trail of death and desolation through the interior of the Isthmus, and the whole of it, whether occupied or not, was claimed by Spain as part of her western erripire ? including, of course, that strip of apparently useless and uninhabitable mangrove swamp oh .the shores of the Caribbean now known as Ei-itish (to distinguish it from Spanish) Honduras. a . . The Elizabethan sea-rovers and their successors laughed at such prbtefisions, but regarded them as a heaven-sent opportunity for cbmbifiing the religious duty of “singeing the King bf Spain’s beard” with the profitable pleasure of robbing the robber-galleons of their gold. After a century and a half of privateering and bubtatiebring thb British got a firm foothold in x the West Indies when Cromwell secured possession of Jafnaica ih 1655. By the Treaty of Madrid in 1667 Spain conceded certain rights to those British colonists whb for tfie prbviods 30 years had been establishing themselves On the uninhabited shores of thfe Belize river estuary in search of logwood, at that time a valuable raw riiaterial for the dye industry. Our Own title-deeds to the colony can be dated to that time. Not that the matter was as cut aha dried as the Papal bequest had been, br that the concession on the Spanish mainland was officially registered as a part of the British Empire. That would have been an anachronism. Yet the officially authorised history of Guatemala (Viliacorta, 1926) recogriisbs the es ■ sentialg of the situation: “Los ingleses se habian apoderadb de la costa de Veranaz (Belize) posesion que en 1667 y 1670 reconocio Espana, sin renunciar al domiriio del teriritbrib, siendO esb el origen de la colbhte britdhiba dfe Belice.” In other words Spain “frecognised it as a British Possession, though without surtefidbring her own Sbvereign Rights over the territory.” Destritetibn by Spain The British cblbfiists increased dpace, especially after buccaneer Harry Morgari dipped the Jblly Roger and enjoined his crews to take to thenisblvbs wives from the negro slaves of Jamaica and settle dowfi to hbfibst work. When Spanish irbops. at war with England agdin in 1754, attacked the cblorilStS ih force, they were routed at a point ofi the Belize river still tailed Spanish Lookout; and a few years later (1763) a second and more explicit treaty was made which recognised the British settlement and its commercial rights. In that year, in fact, the Home Govertiffidht came as near as the mode of those days permitted to claiming Belize as an integral portion of the Empire, by setiding a Rbydl Coinffiissionbr. Sir Williairh Burnaby, to regulate the affairs of the colony undei* thfe authority of the Crown. Spain took aavahtdgb of but preoccupation with the Ainerican Rebellion in 1779 tb attack ahd destroy Belize and edrry bff the Inhabitants as prisoners, but after the Treaty of Versailles of 1783 the survivors returned in force, rebuilt the city, and secured a treaty with Spain reebgriising tfie territory between the Belize river and the rivei* Hondo (on the Mexican border) as a British possession. A few years later (1786) Spain Recognised the Sibiin river as the southern bouridary. Whefi England, friendless and alone, .faced the armed might qi Napoleon, Spain again aeclatbd war,

and the strongest Armada that had sailed the Caribbean for many a long year attacked the colony in 1798, only to be completely routed by a small fleet of home-made boats manned by the colonists and their willing slaves at the (locally) famous Battle of St George’s Cay, on September 10. a day still observed as a public holiday in Belize. From that day till now no attempt has been made to wrest Hohduras from British keeping by force of arms, and the Peace of Amiens (1802) once and for all acknowledged it as British. Thereafter Spain dropped out of the running, for in 1821 the Spanish American lands proclaimed their independence of the European home Government, being supported in their attitude by the North American warning to Europe to keep her hands off the New World, known as the Monroe Doctrine, it is important to note that the United States ih 1850 explicitly recognised that the British colonies of Honduras and Guiana were exceptions to that doctrine which proved the rule. As to the attitude of the newly born Spanish American Republics, Mexico (then dominant in the Isthmus) recognised the .British colony in 1826, and its frontiers were soon after extended by treaty down to the Sarstoon river, wnete they remain to this day. By the middle of the nineteenth century the interminable internecine struggles for predominance among the Republics having subsided, Guatemala developed some thirst for commercial expahsioh. With this in view she made a treaty with British Honduras recognising it as a British but demanding as a quid pro quo that the British shotild co-operate with the Guatemalan Government in opening up a means of communication and transport from the Guatemalan capital (Guatemala Ciudad) to the Caribbean coast and so to the Atlantic. Guatemala now claims that our part of the bargain has hot been fulfilled.

no Eldorado If her old treaty-iiiakers intended a fully-fashioned railway or roads from Guatemala Citidad to Belize, *with a pbrt at the latter place, the pact has certainly not been Kept. No sane person could ever have expected that it would be. Between La Ciudad and Honduras lies the vast mountainous, uninhabited, jungle-submerged district of El Peteh. Frdm the littlfe towh of Bfenque Viejo, dtt the Petfen-Hondutas border, to Belize the terrain either thick with bush or sloppy with interminable swamps. The cost of constructing a Rbad froffi La Ciudad to Belize wfiuld be as much as that of ihe Panama and Suez Canals put together. And at Belize the water of the bay is so shallow that only flat-bot-toined lighters cah approach the quayside; the rise And fail of the tide is only 18in, and the sea bottom fathomless rtiud. Actually, GtiaterfialA neither wants nor needs any such trans-Hon-duranian outlet to the sea. Site has a splendid railway (built by American initiative and capital) linking the capitel with Mexico. El Salvador, the Pacific coast, and thfe fine deepwater harbour of Puerto Barrios, on the Caribbean coast just sotfth of British Honduras.

A communication through the British Colony exists. From Benque Viejo a short road leads to the riverside dock of El Cayo, whence a fleet ol boats plies regularly down x the Old River to Belize. This primitive means of transport is sufficient for such merchandise (cdfiuhe nuts, fruits, chitle, mahogAnv) as the jungles of northwest GUatemAla might wish to convey to .the coast. The British Crown Colony of Honduras is no Eldorado in these days. As the Royal COmtriissioh on Honduras, uhder Sir P. Cunliffe-Lister, reported shortly before the wdr (in 1934), the Colony has shared fully in the depression common tb the West Indies. The trades which once brought her comparative prosperity—logwood, mahogafiy. sugar, banarias, natufal sponges, and tortoiseshell—belong to a bygone world. But she has put up a gallant fight against poverty, disease, hurricanes, and hutnAn enemies for over 300 years (the first .recorded settlement of British “Baymen” was in 1638), and there is no more loyal outpost of Empire.