File No. 817.032/8.

The American Minister to the Secretary of State.

[Extract.]
No. 30.]

Sir: I have the honor to enclose herewith a copy and translation of the message delivered by the President on the occasion of the opening of Congress.

I have [etc.]

Benjamin L. Jefferson.
[Inclosure—Translation—Extract.]

[Untitled]

I have been as careful of peace abroad as I have been of internal tranquility and have maintained the best of relations with our sister republics of Central America and with all the nations of the world.

The negotiations with the United States are still pending relative to the convention which conceded to it under conditions very advantageous for Nicaragua an option to construct a canal through our territory by making use of the facilities offered by our great lakes and the river San Juan del Norte. I deem it unnecessary to present to you its preeminent importance which is already realised by all parties peacefully inclined and whose beneficial consequences we perhaps can as yet but little appreciate. So deep rooted is our conviction in this respect that—unheeding unfounded alarms that this treaty has excited among certain foreign governments, who have given grounds not only for mere suspicion but have shown their hostile intentions—we have hastened our diplomatic negotiations in favor of the convention, which means inalterable peace among us, a prosperous and civilising development, the guaranty of our sovereign rights, loyally promised by a strong friendly nation.

Another of the most cruel obstacles found in the path taken in search of the good of the country, has been the precarious economic situation. At times when the Government has wished to begin its progressive advances it has met with the insuperable barrier of dire need and general poverty. To remedy this is decided to send the Minister of Finance, Don Pedro Rafael Cuadra, to the United States as financial agent, in order to endeavor to procure funds sufficient to pay the public debt. This has been a chief purpose of the administration, in which it has persevered with earnestness, because we understand that with this payment the prosperity of the business of Nicaraguans would be reestablished after the failure brought on by the State; and immediately deriving from this prosperity is the general prosperity and happiness of the country, which is the most beneficent assurance of peace.

Although I cannot yet announce a complete success in these labors of the Government, some good has been attained through the loan contract for one million of dollars celebrated with the bankers Brown Brothers and Co., and J. & W. Seligman & Co. The money acquired has been applied to completing the monetary conversion, to increasing the capital of the National Bank, to the payment of deferred salaries, and a sum of one hundred thousand dollars to the payment of the judgments of the Mixed Commission not exceeding one hundred dollars. The latter, although it establishes a sort of exception or [Page 1021] privilege, has been done in protection of the poor and laboring classes of the country who are the most needy.

Even though this small loan has produced some relief to the economic situation, and has redeemed our internal revenues, we do not think that the mission of our financial agent is as yet concluded. He continues to remain there to negotiate another larger loan which will place us in a position to pay our floating debt. To this end we requested authority of the National Assembly, during its recent extraordinary sessions, for the emission of bonds to liquidate this debt, either all or the part which may remain unpaid after paying the other part in cash.

The chief points in the success of these negotiations consist in the bank contract and the increase of the monetary conversion fund, by virtue of which on institution is strengthened which is necessary to the commerce of the country and assures definitively the prestige of the new money of Nicaragua.

By these same contracts, with the previous authority of the honorable Assembly, the sale was made for one million dollars of 51% of the shares of the Compañía Ferrocarril del Pacífico, the Government keeping in its possession the remaining 49%; and the same company was given a concession for the construction of a railway within five years from San Juan del Sur on the Pacific to San Jorge, a port on the Great Lake. The economic interest of the bankers, tied up in this enterprise, will redound to our advantage by virtue of the improvements in the railway; and as far as the railway from San Juan del Sur to San Jorge is concerned it is most opportune, because in addition to being the beginning of rapid communication with the southern Department which it will most directly benefit, it will be the natural terminus of the mixed interoceanic route in connection with the projected railway to the Atlantic.