The  Intendant  Palacios,  confirms  the  report  in  the
most  expressive  manner  and  states :

"By  virtue  of  the  study  the  undersigned  has
made  of  the  atlas  of  Paz  Soldan,  referred  to  by
the  petitioner;  by  means  of  information  received
from  persons  well  acquainted  with  these  locali-
ties; by  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  laws  estab-
lishing the  provinces  of  Tacna  and  Tarapaca,  as
well  as  the  supreme  decrees  which  mark  the  ter-
ritorial comprisals,  I  am  convinced  that  the  Gov-
ernor of  Arica,  in  his  conclusions,  is  in  the  right
on  a  well  founded  and  well  proven  basis. ' '

The  least  alteration  in  the  boundary  line  marked
out  by  the  Treaty  of  Peace  must  be  avoided,  as  is
shown,  and  for  identical  reasons  it  is  advisable  to
leave  without  effect  the  above-mentioned  decrees  of
1885  and  1888,  in  that  part  which  refers  to  the  villages
segregated  from  Arica.  In  any  case,  Peru  is  not  rec-
ognizing the  effects  of  any  measure  by  which  the  in-
tegrity of  the  territory  may  be  impaired,  the  definite
fate  of  which  is  subject  to  a  plebiscitary  voting.
I  am  commissioned  also  to  call  the  attention  of  Your
Excellency  to  the  concessions  of  beds  of  borates  and
other  substances  made  to  private  enterprises  in  the
territories  of  Tacna  and  Arica  and  to  the  announced
project  of  ceding  guano-beds  and  of  giving  nitrate  de-
posits by  means  of  a  lease  or  sale.
