Mr. Egan to Mr. Blaine.
Santiago, January 12, 1891. (Received March 9.)
Sir.: In my dispatch No. 100 of October 17 last, I had the honor to inform you of the resignation of the ministry of August 15, known as the Prats ministry; of the appointment by the President of a new ministry, elected entirely from his own section of the Liberal party; of the summary closing of the extraordinary session of Congress, and of the fact that those steps had caused intense feeling and would lead to very active agitation on the part of the opposition. This latter prediction has been more than verified. The feeling has intensified and the agitation has gone on increasing until it has at length broken out in an attempt at revolution.
The action of the President in closing Congress, as above stated, resulted from the fact having come to his knowledge that the opposition had prepared, and were about, as a matter of political strategy, to place upon the files of the House an impeachment of the ministry which held office from January to August; and, as Señor Don Enrique Sanfuentes, who was supposed to be the candidate favored by the Executive for the presidency, had been the chief of that cabinet from June to August, this impeachment would have made him ineligible for election. The President met this move by summarily closing the extraordinary session of Congress, as he was entitled under the constitution to do.
At the time that Congress was so closed it had not yet voted the estimates for the succeeding term, nor passed the bill fixing the number and providing for the maintenance of the army and navy, and the opposition claimed that after the last day of December the President, without such congressional authority, would stand in the position of a dictator; while the Executive maintained that it was the duty of Congress to have passed those laws within the term of the regular session, and that, having failed in doing so, it had become the duty of the President to do all that might be necessary for the preservation of order at home and the security of the national interests abroad.
Meantime the political struggle was carried on throughout the country between the opposition on the one side, composed of a coalition of the most divergent elements, including the conservative or church party, some groups of dissenting Liberals, and the extreme radical or antichurch party, and on the other the presidential Liberals; and, as it became more evident that under existing conditions the presidential party would secure a large majority in the coming Congress, the opposition, which is rich and powerful, prepared for revolution.
On the 1st instant the President issued, through the medium of the Diario Oficial, a very able exposition of the causes which have led up to the present deplorable situation and of the position which he proposes to maintain. I will forward copy of this manifesto, together with a translation, by next mail.
On the night of the 6th instant a number of the leaders of the opposition, including the vice-president of the Senate, Señor Don Waldo Silva, and the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Don Bam on Barros Luco, proceeded on board the Chilean fleet lying in the harbor of Valparaiso, and, in the name of the national Congress, proclaimed the revolution. The ships taking part in this movement are the Blanco Encalada, the Cochrane, the Esmeralda, the Huascar, the O’Higgins, and the Magellanes, all of which are now under the command of Señor Don Jorge Montt. There are on board about 800 officers and crew; [Page 93] about 200 soldiers, deserters from the regular army; about 300 to 400 boatmen and others picked up along the shore, and some 400 to 500 citizens.
There are three other ships now on the way from Europe, but steps have been taken by the Government to prevent them from falling into the hands of the revolutionists.
Immediately upon the leaders going on board on the night of the 6th instant the fleet stood out to sea, but returned to the bay in the course of the 7th, and fired a number of guns and made other signals, evidently anticipating friendly responses from the artillery and other branches of the army on shore, but none were returned. Since then, with the exception of occasional cruises alongshore by one or two of the ships, the fleet has remained inactive.
Meantime the President and his cabinet have taken the most active steps to organize the army, which from the best information I can gather appears to me to be entirely loyal, and to increase its strength, and up to the present the most complete order has been maintained everywhere throughout the country. I forwarded to-day, by way of Buenos Ayres, the west-coast cable being cut, a cable message summarizing the foregoing information.
An interesting feature of the struggle is the contention on the part of the President for a popular representative status similar to that occupied by the President of the United States, with the additional power to appoint and remove his ministers at pleasure, which right is given him under the constitution, while the opposition battles for a strictly parliamentary system and the removal of ministers whenever they cease to have the support of a majority in Congress.
I have, etc.,