A good example of how stratagem may be used for a laudable purpose is found in the action of William J. Buchanan, American Minister to Argentina, in adjusting the Chili-Argentinian boundary dispute. Buchanan, one of the most original of American diplomats, had nothing whatever of the suave manipulator of the old school of diplomacy. He was direct to the verge of bruskness, yet his ability to go straight to the essential point, and his mastery and bigness, made him highly successful as a negotiator. In this particular case, Buchanan had been designated, together with a Chilian and an Argentinian representative, on a commission to settle boundary questions and requested to make a preliminary report. He agreed to act only on the following conditions: That because of the complexity and difficulty of the questions involved, it would be necessary to report on the suggested boundary by sections, that each section should be voted upon as reported by him, and that a majority vote on each section should be decisive. This proposal was accepted. After a careful investigation, Buchanan made his report, and it was found that on each section the suggested boundary was carried by two votes against one; the American always voted in the affirmative; the Chilian and Argentinian, as in the particular section the allotments seemed favorable or unfavorable to their respective country. In accordance with the terms agreed upon, the entire report had thus to be accepted, and all the thorny problems of long-standing boundary controversies were settled. Had Buchanan not used this stratagem it is very unlikely that the report as a whole would have been accepted, as each of his associates would have felt that he could not vote for a report containing arrangements for giving up specific tracts of territory which his country had hitherto always insisted upon retaining. By this clever arrangement Buchanan made it possible for them to vote against such relinquishment in each case without defeating the project as a whole; but if he had revealed to them his plan at the beginning, the object could not have been achieved. This incident illustrates that a complete solution will often be accepted as satisfactory although it may contain details which, by themselves, would have been resisted to the last. It may be said that the disadvantage of public discussion lies in the emphasizing of such points of opposition, and the obscuring of the general reasonableness of a solution.