On the other hand, the original plan of having the question decided by a vote of the inhabitants of the provinces concerned was not carried into effect, partly because both claimants cherished a conviction that whichever lost the election would deny its validity, and partly because they could not agree upon the precise method of holding it. Chile suggested that the international commission which was selected to take charge of the plebiscite, and which was composed of a Chilean, a Peruvian, and a neutral, should be presided over by the Chilean member as representative of the country actually in possession, whereas Peru insisted that the neutral should act as chairman. Chile proposed also that Chileans, Peruvians, and foreigners resident in the area six months before the date of the elections should vote, provided that they had the right to do so under the terms of the constitutions of both states. Peru, on its part, objected to the length of residence, and wished to limit carefully the number of Chilean voters, to exclude foreigners altogether from the election, and to disregard qualifications for the suffrage which required an ability to read and write. Both countries, moreover, appeared to have a lurking suspicion that in any event the other would try to secure a majority at the polls by supplying a requisite number of voters drawn from their respective citizenry who were not ordinarily resident in Tacna and Arica! Unable to overcome the deadlock, Chile and Peru agreed in 1913 to postpone the settlement for twenty years longer. At the expiration of this period, when Chile would have held the provinces for half a century, the question should be finally adjusted on bases mutually satisfactory. Officially amicable relations were then restored. While the political situation in Bolivia remained stable, so much could not be said of that in Peru and Ecuador. If the troubles in the former were more or less military, a persistence of the conflict between clericals and radicals characterized the commotions in the latter, because of certain liberal provisions in the Constitution of 1907. Peru, on the other hand, in 1915 guaranteed its people the enjoyment of religious liberty. Next to the Tacna and Arica question, the dubious boundaries of Ecuador constituted the most serious international problem in South America. The so-called Oriente region, lying east of the Andes and claimed by Peru, Brazil, and Colombia, appeared differently on different maps, according as one claimant nation or another set forth its own case. Had all three been satisfied, nothing would have been left of Ecuador but the strip between the Andes and the Pacific coast, including the cities of Quito and Guayaquil. The Ecuadorians, therefore, were bitterly sensitive on the subject.