No. 172.
Mr. Bassett to Mr. Evarts.

No. 531.]

Sir: In my No. 527, of the 17th ultimo, I had the honor to invite your attention briefly to a ministerial crisis which was then here existing, and which had been brought on by a vote in the Chamber of Deputies declaring the conduct, in a circumstance named, of two of President Canal’s ministers anti-patriotic and blamable. It is the purpose of the present dispatch to give a fuller account of the proceedings attending the crisis.

It was stated in my said No. 527 that the minister of the interior, Mr. Thoby, had already withdrawn from the cabinet in consequence of the vote of the chamber, and it was presumed that the minister of finance and foreign affairs, Mr. Ethéart, would be forced to retire also. The presumption proved correct, for the chamber, finding that Mr. Ethéart was in no way disposed to retire before its vote declaring his conduct unpatriotic and blamable, refused to hold any further communication with him, and he was thus forced into retirement.

The circumstances of the retiring of MM. Thoby and Ethéart were such as to lead President Canal to encounter no inconsiderable difficulty in finding others at once capable and willing to take the responsibility of entering into his cabinet; for experience had clearly shown that any cabinet officer was liable at any moment to be blamed, forced into retirement, and held up to public disfavor, at the mere pleasure of the Chamber of Deputies.

But on the 23d ultimo, after the cabinet had remained incomplete for nine days, President Canal issued what is here called a “decree,” announcing that Mr. Felix Carrié had been appointed to be minister of finance and foreign affairs, and Mr. A. Gutierrez to be minister of interior. The entry of MM. Carrié and Gutierrez into President Canal’s cabinet appears to have given a fair degree of public satisfaction, for Mr. Thoby was notoriously unpopular, and Mr. Ethéart, though a man [Page 318] of experience and some ability, was a person whose activity was all of a purely negative character. How to avoid facing or settling any public question seemed to be his sole inquiry in almost every instance.

I had the honor to state in my No. 527, already referred to, that the proceeding which provoked the vote of the Chamber of Deputies against MM. Thoby and Ethéart was that they had caused to be inserted in Le Moniteur a project of law proposed by the Executive to increase the salaries of government employés, together with the announcement of the fact that this project of law had been “adjourned” by that body. In response thereto the Chamber of Deputies accompanied its vote against MM. Thoby and Ethéart by a preliminary statement (inclosure A), which I commend to your convenient perusal, inasmuch as it throws some light upon both the revenues of the country and the disposition which it was proposed to make of them, as well as upon the temper of the chamber itself.

Inclosures B, C, D, and E, are translations of correspondence had (1) between President Canal and the deputy whose influence in the chamber had brought on the ministerial crisis, and (2) between President Canal and the chamber. I venture to commend them as worthy of perusal. They seem to me to presume a delicate sense as to the parliamentary system of government which has never yet existed and is not now fully established here, and they do not, it is thought, make President Canal appear to any material disadvantage.

But the real fact is that there is in Hayti, to a very great extent, a lack of patriotic devotion to the interests of the country. There appear to be no doubts cast upon President Canal’s integrity and patriotism. But the leaders of the Corps Legislatif are generally thought here to be working in their own political interests to cast reflections upon the Canal government. The whole republic would seem certainly to be under sufficient embarrassment to induce all its citizens to work in harmony for its well-being. * * * * *

I am, sir, &c.,

EBENEZER D. BASSETT.
[Inclosure A in No. 531.—Translation.]

Statement of the deputies, censuring the ministers of the interior and finance, August 10, 1877.

During the course of last session the House of Representatives submitted to the appreciation of the Executive a proposition for the augmentation of the salaries of public functionaries, at the same time diminishing their number. The Executive demanded the adjournment of the project.

This year the Executive inscribed in the budgets an augmentation of $100,428 in favor of these functionaries and employés, in conserving at the same time intact their number.

In short, the proposition for the expenses of the public service of 1877–78 amounts to $4,428,336. Of this amount the department of war and of the navy figures for the sum of $767,570, say $30,000 augmentation of the current expense? and this in contradiction of the most formal declaration of the Executive declaration, which was solemnly expressed in these terms in the message: “The army shall be reorganized on a plan which realizes two good things—an economy in the expenses and a solid military instruction.” This plan has yet to appear.

But the representatives of the nation were called on to give their concurrence to a much greater and more extraordinary surprise, to a conduct subversive of all that is serious in the handling of the people’s revenue. In fact, in addition to the total sum to which the budgets amount for the service of 1877–’78, say $4,428,336, the same secretaries of state have successively laid before the House of Representatives—

1st.
A project of law on the administrative police, admitting an expense of $100,000, and consequently an augmentation, to be put in the budget, of $75,000.
2d.
A project of law on the normal primary school, creating a new expense of $70,000.
3d.
Borott’s project for the establishment of railroads, at $35,000 annual subvention.
4th.
A project for a bridge over the Artibonite at $95,000, and this after it was ordered by the project that the bridge was to be constructed by contractors advancing their own capital for the funds payable the first year, $25,000.
5th.
Stevens’s project of $210,000, of which the budgets say nothing as yet since the end of last year; the council of secretaries of state had consented to the renewal of the water-works, under the heavy condition of an indemnity of $30,000 in favor of the contractor. Then comes the unqualifiable omission to be repaired, viz, $60,000.
6th.
A project of the superintendence and the inspection of schools, augmentation which amounts to $17,000.

Total $4,710,336.

Thus already the true, real figures proposed by the council of secretaries of state for the public expenses amount to $4,710,336, while, according to the law, the receipts cannot be more than $4,465,558.

Hence already the deficit is $244,778, more than double the proposed amount for the augmentation of administrative salaries. This is not all. The council of secretaries of state omitted the project of law augmenting the salaries of teachers, a project already voted last year by the House of Representatives on its own initiative, say $100,000.

Consulted by the Senate to know what were the views of the Executive as to buying or subventioning the theatre of Port au Prince, the Executive gave its opinion for buying it, and the chamber ratified the decision; hence a new expense of $15,000.

To the vote of the law which increases the emoluments o the judges, the secretary of justice added the proposition of the committee of justice to hereafter pay the substitute judges, thus making a new expense to be provided for, $35,000.

Total, $4,860,336.

In a rectificative budget the council of secretaries of state having exceeded the budgets in exercise by $243,743, ask that a half of that value should be taken from the sinking-fund created last year as the pledge of the numerous creditors of the state. Now as this is not possible, except by imperilling the good faith of the legislature, this deficit on the coming ordinary service must be provided for, viz, $121,871.

Total, $4,982,207.

In effect, then, the House of Representatives had to consider a financial situation created, so to say, by the pleasure of the secretaries of state. It finds itself in face of a receipt of $4,465,558, and of propositions for expenses amounting to $4,982,207, from whence arises the deficit of $516,649.

The concern for its duty, because the council of secretaries of state visibly failed in theirs, gave rise by its own initiative to the commissions composed of the commissions on the budgets of the House, of the Senate, and the council of secretaries of state.

Now, while the members of the Corps Legislatif were aiding by their most devoted and conscientious efforts the secretaries of state in renewing their budgets, so as to judge of the importance of their own projects in order to assign to these projects an order of priority which would at least be conformable to the public funds, these same secretaries of state, by an insertion made in the last number of the Moniteur, stigmatize with a visible and evil intention the patriotic labor of the Corps Législatif.

Well, is it not, then, these secretaries of state themselves who ordered the adjournment of their projects at the very time when they consented to work in concert with the legislative commission on this point, so as justly to know from their projects, jointly with those which emanated from the initiative of the members of Parliament, which might be most important, and consequently most admissible for the present?

In consequence, the House of Representatives by its deliberation of this day declares the conduct of the two secretaries of finance and of the interior anti-patriotic and blamable.

It orders that the present note be forwarded to the Executive to be put at the head of the first column of the Moniteur of Saturday, 11th instant.


  • St. MARTIN.
  • DUPUY.
  • JUSTIN.
  • LOFFICIAL.
  • TOVAR.
  • E. PAUL.
  • HUC.
  • Général L. J. VILLE-CERCLE.
  • OVIDE CAMEAU.
  • E. PINKCOMBE.
  • EM. LALANNE.
  • W. DÉJOIE.
  • D. BRAS.
  • GOLDMANN, Jr.
[Page 320]
[Inclosure B in No. 531.—Translation.]

President Canal to Deputy Paul.

To the Deputy Edmond Paul, Port au Prince:

Monsieur le Député: The vote in the chamber at its sitting of yesterday, and the criticisms which accompany and comment upon it, have as their logical consequence brought on a ministerial crisis.

According to parliamentary principles adopted everywhere, it belongs to those whose proposition has rallied the majority, and put the ministry in the necessity of retiring, to form a new cabinet. I think, therefore, that I am within the true constitutional limit to act conformably to the theory which you yourself invoked at the time of my first call, and to render to the decisions of the chamber as well as to your own talent a merited homage, in offering to you for the second time a ministerial charge, and praying you to be pleased to aid me in composing a new cabinet.

The gravity of the actual condition of things, to which the vote of yesterday adds a new complication, does not permit me to doubt that you will respond to this appeal addressed to your patriotism and your intelligence. You will feel, I am sure, as profoundly as I do, the importance which the decision of the chamber attaches to your assistance, and you will not think of refusing an undertaking for which a capacity everywhere recognized, and a manifest influence in the Parliament, have long designated you.

Accept, Mr. Deputy, the assurance of my high consideration.

BOISROND CANAL.
[Inclosure C in No. 531.—Translation.]

Deputy Paul to President Canal.

To the President of Hayti:

Monsieur le President: I had the honor to receive your message yesterday, between five and six o’clock in the evening.

Having already made known to you verbally my response, nothing more remains for me than the honor of thanking you anew for having addressed it to me.

I pray you, Mr. President, to accept my most profound civilities.

E. PAUL.
[Inclosure D in No. 531.—Translation.]

Message of President Canal to the Haytian House of Representatives.

(Seventy-fourth year of Independence.)

Boisrond Canal, President of Hayti, to the House of Representatives:

Messieurs les Députés: At the very moment when two successive votes seemed to establish that the cabinet had all the confidence of the house, when there did not exist between the powers any appearance of dissidence, an unforeseen vote, on a simple question of propriety, provoked a ministerial crisis, without any previous explanation being demanded of those who were attacked.

This situation, as you easily understand it, is so much the more embarrassing as the session is coming to an end, and the budgets are not even voted. A new ministry, called in similar circumstances, would necessarily need a certain delay to study these budgets and to discuss them before the chambers.

In order to obviate such an inconvenience and to obey the law of majorities observed everywhere in parliamentary countries, my choice would necessarily fall on the men who were acquainted with the affairs of the country, and who would come from the very midst of the assembly whose vote overthrew the cabinet. Moreover, the order of the day of the chamber left me no other alternative; it is said, in fact, on the one hand, that the budgets presented are subversive of all that is serious in the handling of public revenues; and, on the other hand, that the chamber saw itself in the obligation to make them over again. It logically followed that the member of the chamber who had drawn up and proposed this order of the day, could not, in view of his patriotism, refuse to come and aid in drawing up a budget serious and hereafter conformable to the principles which he invoked Against my ministry.

[Page 321]

I therefore called the deputy Paul, and left him all latitude to form a cabinet of his own choice. I regret to announce to you that he thought it best to shun the consequences of the vote which he had provoked. As chief of the state I must obey parliamentary usages in accepting the resignation of my ministers who seem to have lost the confidence of the chamber. But is not this obligation reciprocal, and is there not, for the authors of the ministerial crisis, an altogether imperious duty not to decline the responsibility and the consequences of their acts? Otherwise ministerial crises will unceasingly succeed one another, and my government will soon be reduced to the deplorable situation of no longer being able to find, to serve it, men possessing the guarantee required by the assembly itself.

I call your most serious attention, Messieurs, to the condition in which similar proceedings place the government. I would not have had to raise this question if the deputy Paul had accepted the portfolio which was offered to him; but in the face of his refusal, I can explain to myself less and less how the assembly could pass a vote which provokes the retirement of the ministry, without giving to the ministers time and opportunity to be heard, so as to determine and define mutual responsibilities. It is a regrettable precipitation which the legitimate susceptibilities of a great body could undoubtedly justify, but which its wisdom and justice are called to repair in finding the equitable solution to a situation equally embarrassing for the two powers.

Receive, Messieurs les Députés, the assurances of my very high consideration.

BOISROND CANAL.
[Inclosure E in 2 No. 531.—Translation.]

Response of the Chamber to the message of President Canal.

message.

To the President of Hayti:

Citizen President: The chamber has the honor to respond to your message of this day, which has had its most serious attention.

It understands with difficulty that you can invoke, in the circumstance, the law of majorities. Its duty is to remind you that the majority of the chamber has applied itself until this day to defend the cabinet wherever it has been attacked, and that the deputy Paul, whom you wished to honor with your confidence in calling him to the counsels of the executive, has always voted with that majority which has shown itself on every occasion so considerate toward the ministry.

Be well pleased to remember, Citizen President, that the members of this very ministry, the constant object of our sympathy, we would almost say of the high solicitude of the Corps Législatif, are those who, by a deliberate purpose, when the chamber expected it least, provoked by a note in the Moniteur a crisis which was so little in our expectations, and attracted this vote, which is not the work of a party, or even of the majority, but which is the expression of the unanimous sentiments of the house of representatives.

The assembly, moreover, can the less explain to itself that the refusal of Deputy Paul to accept a portfolio should put you in the impossibility of fulfilling your constitutional duties.

As to what you are pleased to call a regrettable precipitation, the chamber can explain to itself less and less the invitation which you seem to make to it to repair that precipitation by listening to the explanations which your secretaries of state might have offered to it in order to determine the responsibilities which the dignity of the nation that it represents does not permit it to provoke, being in the right as to the occurrence, and having constantly given, as it begs you not to forget, numerous and unequivocal proofs of its justice and wisdom.

The chamber, Citizen President, salutes you with the highest consideration,

EUG. MARGRON,
President of the Chamber.

Attest:
ULYSSE DÉCATREL,
Secretary Archivist.