Mr. José García Cabañas.

My dear sir and esteemed friend:

I have already seen published the document from the Chamber of Commerce which, amidst some generalities, expresses its desire for a perfect harmony to be reached between the mining industry and agriculture so that both may exist in tranquility. We, too, desire the same, and from that point of view, we are in agreement; however, it appears that the Chamber has not fully grasped either what our Commission represents or the principal object of our petition, perhaps because we have not succeeded in expressing ourselves with sufficient clarity. We do not represent the interests of miners or farmers; we represent merchants, industrialists, workers, owners of urban estates, and, in general, all those interests harmed or liable to be harmed by the continual discord between agriculture and mining, and by the measures being adopted.

These interests are, indeed, a derivation of the mining interests, because some have developed alongside mining and others have grown and were born just as the industry and its fluctuations were born and grew; but they are not the mining interests; they are ours, properly speaking. We are not parties to the litigation of any mining Company; we are not a commission from within their ranks sent to represent one of the litigating parties, but rather to defend our own interests, which may come out ruined in the struggle—and which are already partially so, although it is possible that in Riotinto they are not taken as such.

I believe we must insist on declaring what we are, what we represent, and what we desire, for it seems there are those who do not know and perhaps those who do not wish to understand it.

I remain your most affectionate servant, who kisses your hand, Miguel Dominguez.

(As published in La Provincia)