The arrival of General Guzman Blanco at this time is generally regarded
as very significant, as it is believed that he will soon be called by
the President of the republic to some high position under the
government. Whether this will occur or not, it is safe to assert that
the government of Venezuela cannot, under any circumstances, be worse
administered than it is at present.
The condition of the country, politically and financially, is deplorable.
If I may be allowed the expression, the republic is simply an organized
anarchy. It is now almost a year since the President, General Falcon,
has visited the capital, causing thereby general dissatisfaction, and
greatly injuring his previous popularity. During this period the peace
of the different states of the republic has been seriously disturbed by
ambitious chiefs overrunning with their forces the country, destroying
its agriculture, paralyzing its trade, and sacrificing the lives of the
people.
In addition to this the treasury is without a dollar, and the officials
and employés of the government, from minister to clerks, have not been
paid their salaries for the last seven months. Nor can this condition of
affairs be attributed to the poverty of the country. On the contrary,
Venezuela is rich beyond degree in all those productions which give
wealth to a nation.
The gold mines of Guayana, the coffee plantations of Aragua, the cocoa of
Carabobo, and the cattle of the vast plains of the Orinoco are of
themselves sources of overflowing wealth to this country.
But, independent of these considerations, I am reliably informed that
even now the revenues far exceed the amount necessary for all proper
expenditures, and that, if they were honestly and economically managed,
would not only be ample to support the government, but also, in a few
years, to discharge the entire debt of Venezuela, home and foreign.
Nevertheless, with all these advantages, Venezuela is every year
becoming more and more embarrassed. Why this is so can then only be
explained by the utter neglect of public affairs by those especially
charged therewith, the dishonesty and corruption of subordinate
officials, and the entire absence of responsibility in almost every
department.
If, under such circumstances, General Guzman Blanco, by assuming control,
can bring quiet to the country and in some degree restore the national
credit, his return will be fortunate for Venezuela, her people, and her
creditors generally.
I enclose herewith a slip from El Federalista, the leading newspaper of
this city, containing an editorial on the condition of the country as
connected with the payment of the French debt. The editorial and
translation of the same are marked enclosure 1.
[Translation.—From El Federalista,
January 15,
1867.]
[Untitled]
Within 18 days more, the time assigned for the payment of the annual
instalment on account of the French indemnities will expire, and
with its maturity in prospect coincides the arrival of the French
man-of-war D’Estaing at our port of La Guayra.
Whether this combination of circumstances be casual or not, it is not
in our power to affirm; they may know it who are aware of the manner
how this unfortunate country is officially treated by the
representative of France, and the feeling which influences him at
present, and in the presence of the disasters of all kinds that
overwhelm the republic.
The fact is that on the 3d of February Venezuela must pay 150,000
pesos to the order of the French legation, and that that payment is
little less than physically impossible on the part of a government
without credit, and whose metallic resources, reduced down to the
revenue of two custom-houses, a prey to smugglers, and decreasing by
reason of the limited consumption, hardly are sufficient to cover
with great exertions the military expenditures, which with
pertinacity were not intended to be, although they should and could
have been, diminished. An administration that owes almost one year’s
salary to its employés; that has not been able, now going on to six
months, to pay something on account to the widows, orphans, and
soldiers of independence favored by the national gratitude, is more
than a des-erate debtor in the judgment of any power or particular
creditor. Doubtless this impotency as been comprehended in all its
extent, and hence the presence of the vessel in the first port of
the republic; in the face of force they may have imagined, and they
may have said so, that there is no impotency to redeem nor to
consent to a postponement: either the government of itself, or
individuals responsible to the same, shall pay us in the name of the
nation that signed the obligation.
Unfortunately the policy of the national government, especially in
the department of the public treasury, neither gives rise to, nor
authorizes any kind of excuse. An indebted government ought to be
rigidly economical; ours has neither shone nor shines for the
practice of that virtue. It ought, in like manner, to be a most
severe and a very zealous administrator of what appertains to it as
a fund for the expenses and liabilities that press upon the country,
and ours has consented to, has tolerated, for nearly three years,
the most ruinous and immoral remissness in the custom-house revenue,
either through smuggling, by maintaining its actual vicious tariffs,
or through the frauds of which the official powers of some states
have rendered themselves guilty. There may exist, and do exist, in
fact, circumstances which attenuate the responsibility of such
tolerance, but they are not allegeable against requirements like the
forthcoming one of the 3d of February.
But if the government is not authorized to offer excuses, directly
growing out of its present situation and its own policy which has
created it, it is much exceedingly so, in an augmented degree, in
the name of the misery, of the disastrous, appalling ruin in which
the country is plunged. Thus, if the diplomacy of international
claims had any compassion, the postponement of the payment of the
instalment of February would be more than justified, as a claim of
the country, as a concession of the minister, or in its case of the
French government. There is also indicated, by a noble feeling of
interest for the misfortunes of the country that has proffered them
its hospitality, the intervention, to the same end, of the French
creditors themselves, who reside in Venezuelan territory.
However, we much fear that none of these considerations will avert
coercive action, and we see coming many humiliating sacrifices
arising from the maturity of the instalment, for which there has
been no desire to make any redeeming preparative. How dear, in honor
and metallic sacrifices, anarchy, by whose consent we allow
ourselves to be dragged, personal passions and the interests of
cliques, which give an irresistible impetus to that current, cost
us! The humiliation and costly efforts which the payment of the 3d
of February has in store for us, and the realization itself of the
payment, stir in our patriotic memory recollections the most painful
and irritating.
The ambition of our parties, the anger of their impatience, the
avidity of the hatred which has plunged us into war,; the
abandonment in which we have left, at the hour of our shameful
victories, the true interests of the country; all those bad elements
united, have ended in imitating Esau selling for a mess of
pottage—that is to say, for ephemeral power—the enjoyment of the
right of primogeniture, or rather that of true national
independence. This to-day does not in reality exist. Let us so
confess and proclaim it, although we feel stirring under the sod
that covers them the bones of our fathers, who, at the price of
their lives and most noble property—home, fortune, and
position—conquered it for us at the commencement of this century. It
does not, in truth, exist, and an eloquent testimony of it is the
metallic conflict, and one of honor, which awaits in February.
While the ruin of Venezuelan property by the
combined action of the elements of nature and of public power—the
latter by its taxes, its outrages in the States, or the want of
probity in contracts—is the general spectacle in the whole circuit
of the country, French property—that is to say, foreign
property—presents itself, claiming, without appeal, without delay,
and of that very Venezuelan property ruined,. the payment of
indemnities for damages, real or fictitious, moderate or monstrously
and artificially augmented, which had been caused during the war,
and will be no way to escape from the reaggravation. National ruin will indemnify foreign
property. Behold to what a point has our nationality been reduced by
our own persevering efforts to toil at home to give pasture to the
destruction of anarchy, or
[Page 797]
to indemnify the fortunes of the foreigners which the former
succeeds in crushing, or even in touching, with its wheels.
The difference in the kind of slavery does not weaken the opprobrious
and mortal effects of this. In reality, our madness, opening a wide
sluice to foreign voracity and corruption, has converted us into
slaves. We work to pay either for the honor of being visited by the
foreigner, or for the temerity to do with the property of the latter
what we do with our own, to devour it wantonly.
The worst of all is that these reflections, so comprehensible to the
whole world, in nothing rectify the error, little or very little
stop the arm from continuing the work. Our government persist in
their disregard for the rights of national property, although they
spontaneously, or by force, are the most efficacious protectors of
that which the foreign flag covers. To disrespect the property or
the person of a Venezuelan requires but four bayonets, which are
never wanting to do the same with a Frenchman; for instance, there
must be an allowance made in the appropriation bill and a portion of
the public contributions set apart. This amen to foreign fraud is
propped up by that of the country to swell up into the proportions
of an elephant what is in reality microscopic.
It is not the intention or the aim to bear in mind, to remember when
it should be, that those two elements of demoralization combined
cost us perhaps half a hundred millions of pesos, paid and to be
paid in half a century of existence, and that in the conflicts, of
which they served as a mournful origin, our honor, like the
Englishman to whom in his case Sheridan referred, has run profusely
through all our pores.
The problem of peace at home, solved by the establishment and
maintenance of a government of laws in force and. zealously
respected by authorities and individuals, can only wrench us from
the abyss to which, following in the track of Mexico, we behold
ourselves to-day driven. But the best efforts and the most earnest
exhortations that could be employed in the presence of such a heap
of disasters appear, up to this hour, and for the object, impotent.
Patriotism, which in this emergency docs not imply self-denial nor
duty, but legitimate personal convenience, lies entirely prostrate.
Scarcely is its vitality felt beating, or, at most, moves its lips
to stutter the delirious words of revolutionary fever.
What, then, is going to become of this country? what of the destinies
of this nationality, which its founders bequeathed so glorious to
it, at the price of their exemplary martyrdom?
