Translations of these notes are also herewith appended.
[Inclosure 2 in No.
195.—Translation.]
Señor Bravo to
Mr. Gosling.
Ministry for
Foreign Affairs,
National
Palace
Managua, September 13, 1892.
Mr. Minister: By direction of the Secretary
of State at Washington, the American minister residing in this
Republic has addressed an inquiry to my Government regarding an
increase of duties to which a company of steamers from New Orleans
[Page 171]
has recently been
subjected at Bluefields. My Government, Mr. Minister, has been
unable thus far to make a definite reply to the American
representative, as it will be unable to do to the representatives of
any other nation, because, if it be true that the British
protectorate does not exist de jure in the
Mosquito Reservation, it does exist there de
facto, since in every measure taken by this Republic, which
the treaty of Managua, as well as the arbitral award of the Emperor
of Austria recognizes as sovereign in the Mosquito territory, the
Crown of England intervenes, notwithstanding the fact that those
measures have never tended to restrict the self-government which the
Indians may rightly claim, and in spite of the fact that Her
Britannic Majesty took the engagement to use her good offices with
the chief of the Mosquitos to secure the acceptance of the
stipulations contained in the treaty referred to.
Neither that document nor the arbitral award authorized the Indians
to collect duties for pilotage, light-houses, wharfage, and
anchorage, but only those of importation upon merchandise destined
for the territory of the Reserve.
It will not escape the notice of your excellency that these
unauthorized acts of the Mosquito court can not fail to prejudice
the interests of Nicaragua, since no merchant or company will care
to subject themselves to the payment of increased and illegal duties
of wharfage, pilotage, anchorage, etc., duties which only the
sovereign can levy, according to the general principles of
international law. The injury consists chiefly in this: that the
commerce, which is carried on throughout that region of the
Republic, and the industries established there, will be destroyed,
thus causing the ruin of both natives and foreigners. Hence
Nicaragua can not approve these duties, and has so declared to the
minister of the United States.
The Mosquito Indians, according to the treaty of Managua, have the
right to govern themselves in accordance with their customs and the
regulations which, from time to time, may be adopted, if not
inconsistent with the sovereign rights of Nicaragua.
This clause, by implication, grants to the Republic the power of
revising the regulations which the Mosquito court decrees, since,
otherwise, the distinction set forth as a necessary condition in
article 3 would have no practical meaning. It is the fact, however,
that the court mentioned does not respect the obligation it is under
to submit to the approval of Nicaragua the regulations it adopts and
at once carries into effect, although they may be inconsistent with
our sovereign rights, as happens in the present case.
It is not the first time that my Government has had inquiries
addressed to it for similar reasons, since the nations in general
interpret the treaty of 1860 and the arbitral award in accordance
with the spirit of those documents, recognizing the sovereignty of
Nicaragua in the Reserve, an interpretation very different from that
of Her Britannic Majesty, whose opinion upon this subject produces
the strange result of making the Mosquitia to appear as a State
within a State.
Frankly, Mr. Minister, there is no example in history where,
recognizing the sovereign rights of a nation over a part of its
territory, one, at the same time, pretends to intervene in the
exercise of those rights; forgetting that such intervention
encourages the subjects to show disrespect for and to disobey the
mandate of their superior, and that there is no law, convention, or
statute which can prevent the progressive development of
peoples.
But this is no groundless assertion. It has the certainty of facts
occurring again and again, and known throughout the whole country.
Nicaragua has been opposed in its commercial movement, obstructed in
its communications between the Atlantic and the towns situated to
the west of the Reserve, in the prolongation of its railway lines on
that side of the coast, and in the working of its gold mines, as
well as in its measures of vigilance and territorial defense, and
the establishment of stations in those places to facilitate
immigration and to carry on the works of the Interoceanic Canal. The
same as it is obstructed in its measures and acts of sovereignty,
for fear of causing trouble to the English subjects which form the
council of the Reserve.
Thus it is the opinion of my Government that so long as individuals
take part in the Mosquito court who do not belong to the native
caste, the period of incorporation of the Mosquitos will be put off
indefinitely because it suits the interests of those persons that
the semiindependent state of the Reserve be continued—a result
entirely contrary to the spirit of the treaty of Managua, which
gives to Nicaragua the right to procure and carry into effect that
incorporation.
My Government, up to the present time, has observed and faithfully
obeyed all the stipulations of the treaty referred to, although it
might have been disregarded and considered null, since it rests upon
the supposed dominion which Great Britain had acquired over the
Mosquito coast, arising simply from military occupation, and since
ten years before the English Government had voluntarily relinquished
the same, as well as all influence and protection over the
inhabitants of every part of Central America, by virtue of the
Clayton-Bulwer treaty concluded with the United States of America
the 19th of April, 1850, a compact which forbids to-day all
intervention or claim which the Government of your excellency may
make in matters relative to the Mosquito coast.
[Page 172]
In the interest of Nicaragua, Mr. Minister, as well as of all
nations, it is fitting and desirable that this question be settled
in a definitive manner, now that our country is attracting attention
and exciting general interest on account of the enviable position
which it occupies, and the splendid future that lies before it.
Immigrants, by nature suspicious, will refuse to touch at our ports
or establish themselves in the territory of the Reserve, lest they
be at the mercy of a foreign authority, believing that Nicaragua is
powerless to protect them, or to give answer even to reclamations
which their respective Governments may present in a given case to
save their interests.
Your excellency well knows that where there is not the beneficent
shield of a constituted government, and where there is no
responsibility for injuries suffered, there immigration will not go,
and if the country needs immigration for its development and
progress, as happens in the case of Nicaragua, that progress will
never be attained because the chief element to secure it will be
repelled from our shores.
My Government, Mr. Minister, in the name of that justice and right
which belongs to it, trusts to the nonintervention of Her Britannic
Majesty in the measures which Nicaragua may dictate in the Reserve,
as an independent and sovereign nation—measures intended to provide
for the defense and security of the Indians, and for their social
improvement, as well as for the reincorporation of that territory,
without violating in any manner the stipulations of former
diplomatic documents.
In the opinion of my Government, it interests the good name of
England not to have it believed that it is in any manner due to her
acts that Nicaragua fails to advance with the desired rapidity, and
to comply with its duties as a sovereign State; and my Government
trusts that the Government of your excellency will give attention to
this question, and when it has been settled in favor of this
country, as equity and right demand, Her Britannic Majesty will have
given one more proof of her elevated views in favor of the progress
of the Republic, which opens its doors to all races, and is now
struggling to reach that high place to which its destiny calls
it.
With assurances, etc.,
