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MEXICAN WATER TREATY 1c 5. EXCHANGE OF WATERS OF THE COLORADO FOR THOSE OF THE RIO GRANDE Contrary to assurances given the American Senate that in negotiating the treaty each river was considered separately and did not represent a trade of Colorado River water given to Mexico at the expense of the Colorado Basin States, in exchange for water given Texas, the Mexican negotiators frankly said that Mexico was getting water in her own right on the Colorado by paying for it with waters of the Rio Grande (Cardona, El Nacional, August 2, 1945). They cited the Ollendorff doctrine: If you take care of me on the Colorado, I will take care of you on the Rio Grande, and vice versa (Enriquez, Excelsior, August 3, 1945). 6. INTERPRETATION OF THE AMERICAN RESERVATIONS The meaning of the American reservations was not considered by the Mexican witnesses to be very clear, but the proponents of the treaty said that it would be better to clarify them by an exchange of notes than by Mexican reservations, which would have to go back to the American Senate, where the treaty would not find as favorable a climate as that which had prevailed when the treaty was ratified. 7. DISCUSSION OF HISTORICAL BACKGROUND It was stated in the Mexican hearings that the present treaty had been proposed by Mexico, not by the United States, in early 1941, in very much the same form as that in which it was finally signed (Enriquez, Excelsior, August 4, 1945), and that the text of the present treaty had been agreed upon in Spanish, then translated into English (Martinez de Alba, El Universal, September 6, 1945). Between March 27, 1942, and February 16, 1943, Mexico sent four notes defining the problems to be solved (Enriquez, Excelsior, August 4, 1945). At one stage of the negotiations, Mexico demanded 2,000,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water, but offered to pay for the regulatory works in quantities of water instead of money (id.). 8. DISCUSSION OF ARBITRATION The Mexican testimony was that the treaty negotiations were precipitated in 1940 by a drought on the Rio Grande. Mexico and the United States were said to have exchanged notes during this period at the rate of one every 20 days. It was stated that the Mexicans brought on the treaty negotiations by threatening arbitration; but the arbitration demanded apparently related to the Rio Grande (Enriquez, Excelsior, August 4, 1945). All this diplomatic background should be published, together with the minutes of the negotiations themselves. 9. THE DOCTRINE OF "UNITY OF THE RIVER" The offcial argument for the treaty in Mexico was based on the doctrine of the unity of the river; namely, that the seven American States of the Colorado River Basin, in the Colorado River compact, had abandoned the doctrine of priority of use, or an apportionmentsEpson Perfection 4870 Photo, 400 dpi, 8 bit, 2,315,264 byte