No. 16.
Mr. Osborn
to Mr. Evarts.
Buenos Ayres, September 20, 1879. (Received November 1.)
Sir: The bill submitted to Congress by the President, mentioned in my dispatch No. 241, in reference to the mobilization of the national guard, and claiming that the national government alone has the right to mobilize that force, was rejected by the House, and a substitute was reported by the committee on federal relations, and has passed the House and will doubtless pass the Senate, prohibiting the mobilization of the force within eight months preceding a presidential election.
The provincial legislature took up the decree of the governor in reference to the mobilization of the troops, and after a long discussion passed a resolution, or law, prohibiting the governor from mobilizing the national guards without the previous consent of the legislature, which the governor will probably veto, at the same time asserting his absolute and undivided right over the control of that force.
As the matter now stands, it is believed that the storm that for a time threatened the peace of the country and the union of the provinces, for the present, at least, is passed.
Outside of his own party, I am inclined to think that the governor has but few sympathizers, as it was generally believed that the policy adopted by the governor involves the principle of secession and the separation of this province from the other provinces, which was finally settled by a negative, as it was supposed, at the battle of Pavou, in which General Urquiza, the president of the other provinces, was defeated by General Mitre, the governor of this province, who became the provincial President of all the provinces united.
This question, and the jealousies of Buenos Ayres against the other [Page 35] provinces, is at the bottom of almost all the trouble attending a presidential campaign.
Since the presidency of General Mitre all of the Presidents have been selected from one of the other provinces, and as General Roca is a native of the province of Tucuman, his candidature has aroused all of that old jealousy and bitter feeling which separated Buenos Ayres in other days from the other provinces.
As the idea that Paris is France, so the sentiment in this province up to the present has obtained that Buenos Ayres is the Argentine Republic.
It is true that this province has borne and now bears the greater part of the burthen and expenses of government, but this feeling that Buenos Ayres is the Argentine Republic must soon die out, as the Argentine Republic, with its variety of climate, soil, and extent of territory, with her provinces rapidly filling up by immigration and otherwise, must soon become the United States of South America, and her power to control will soon find its center removed to the interior.
I have, &c.,