quillity there, an open agitation was begun in the press of Madrid in the winter of 1863-64 for the abandonment of the island. A bill for that purpose was eventually passed by the Cortes, and became a law by the signature of the Queen on April 30, 1865. Mr. Koerner, min. to Spain, to Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, No. 76, Feb. 14, 1864, Dip. Cor. 1864, IV. 8; Mr. Seward, to Mr. Koerner, No. 86, May 4, 1864, id. 19; same to same, No. 87, May 6, 1864, id. 19; Mr. Koerner to Mr. Seward, No. 99, May 20, 1864, id. 29; Mr. Perry, chargé at Madrid, to Mr. Seward, No. 135, Oct. 28, 1864, Dip. Cor. 1865, II. 465 ; same to same, No. 161, Jan. 31, 1865, id. 471; Mr. Seward to Mr. Perry, No. 70, Feb. 27, 1865, id. 508; Mr. Perry to Mr. Seward, No. 196, May 7, 1865; id. 534. Messrs. Wade, White, and Howe, commissioners to Santo Domingo, in 1871, reported that the failure of the Spanish there was attributable to the following things: (1) The filling of public offices with Spaniards to the exclusion of Dominicans; (2) the color prejudice of the Spanish subordinate officials, who were chiefly Spanish subjects from Cuba and Porto Rico, where the enslavement of persons of color still continued; (3) the brutality of some of the superior officers and of many of the soldiery; (4) the over-regulation of matters of daily life; (5) religious intolerance; (6) conflicts of political ideas; (7) an apprehension that slavery would be reestablished. The best opinion seemed to be that Spain sent about 35,000 troops to the island, of whom 6,000 or 8,000 were lost by disease or desertion. (Report of the Commission of Inquiry, 1871, S. Ex. Doc. 9, 42 Cong. 1 sess. 9-11.) (3) PROTOCOL OF FEBRUARY 7, 1905. § 962. In September, 1903, a project was submitted to the Dominican Congress by the Minister of Interior and Police for the neutralization of Dominican waters and the establishment of free ports at Samana and Manzanillo. It formed the subject of a correspondence between the legation of the United States and the Dominican foreign office, and in the middle of October was withdrawn. Mr. Powell, chargé d'affaires to Santo Domingo, to Mr. Hay, Sec. of State, "I submit herewith a protocol concluded between the Dominican Republic and the United States. "The conditions in the Republic of Santo Domingo have been growing steadily worse for many years. There have been many disturbances and revolutions, and debts have been contracted beyond the power of the Republic to pay. Some of these debts were properly contracted and are held by those who have a legitimate right to their money. Others are without question improper or exorbitant, con stituting claims which should never be paid in full and perhaps only to the extent of a very small portion of their nominal value. "Certain foreign countries have long felt themselves aggrieved because of the nonpayment of debts due their citizens. The only way by which foreign creditors could ever obtain from the Republic itself any guaranty of payment would be either by the acquisition of territory outright or temporarily, or else by taking possession of the custom-houses, which would of course in itself, in effect, be taking possession of a certain amount of territory. "It has for some time been obvious that those who profit by the Monroe doctrine must accept certain responsibilities along with the rights which it confers; and that the same statement applies to those who uphold the doctrine. It can not be too often and too emphatically asserted that the United States has not the slightest desire for territorial aggrandizement at the expense of any of its southern neighbors, and will not treat the Monroe doctrine as an excuse for such aggrandizement on its part. We do not propose to take any part of Santo Domingo, or exercise any other control over the island save what is necessary to its financial rehabilitation in connection with the collection of revenue, part of which will be turned over to the Government to meet the necessary expense of running it, and part of which will be distributed pro rata among the creditors of the Republic upon a basis of absolute equity. The justification for the United States taking this burden and incurring this responsibility is to be found in the fact that it is incompatible with international equity for the United States to refuse to allow other powers to take the only means at their disposal of satisfying the claims of their creditors and yet to refuse, itself, to take any such steps. "An aggrieved nation can without interfering with the Monroe doctrine take what action it sees fit in the adjustment of its disputes with American states, provided that action does not take the shape of interference with their form of government or of the despoilment of their territory under any disguise. But, short of this, when the question is one of a money claim, the only way which remains, finally, to collect it is a blockade, or bombardment, or the seizure of the customhouses, and this means, as has been said above, what is in effect a possession, even though only a temporary possession, of territory. The United States then becomes a party in interest, because under the Monroe doctrine it can not see any European power seize and permanently occupy the territory of one of these Republics; and yet such seizure of territory, disguised or undisguised, may eventually offer the only way in which the power in question can collect any debts, unless there is interference on the part of the United States. "One of the difficult and increasingly complicated problems, which often arise in Santo Domingo, grows out of the violations of contracts and concessions, sometimes improvidently granted, with valuable privileges and exemptions stipulated for upon grossly inadequate considerations which were burdensome to the state, and which are not infrequently disregarded and violated by the governing authorities. Citizens of the United States and of other governments holding these concessions and contracts appeal to their respective governments for active protection and intervention. Except for arbitrary wrong, done or sanctioned by superior authority, to persons or to vested property rights, the United States Government, following its traditional usage in such cases, aims to go no further than the mere use of its good offices, a measure which frequently proves ineffective. On the other hand, there are governments which do sometimes take energetic action for the protection of their subjects in the enforcement of merely contractual claims, and thereupon American -concessionaries, supported by powerful influences, make loud appeal to the United States Government in similar cases for similar action. They complain that in the actual posture of affairs their valuable properties are practically confiscated, that American enterprise is paralyzed, and that unless they are fully protected, even by the enforcement of their merely contractual rights, it means the abandonment to the subjects of other governments of the interests of American trade and commerce through the sacrifice of their investments by excessive taxes imposed in violation of contract, and by other devices, and the sacrifice of the output of their mines and other industries, and even of their railway and shipping interests, which they have established in connection with the exploitation of their concessions. Thus the attempted solution of the complex problem by the ordinary methods of diplomacy reacts injuriously upon the United States Government itself, and in a measure paralyzes the action of the Executive in the direction of a sound and consistent policy. The United States Government is embarrassed in its efforts to foster American enterprise and the growth of our commerce through the cultivation of friendly relations with Santo Domingo, by the irritating effects on those relations, and the consequent injurious influence upon that commerce, of frequent interventions. As a method of solution of the complicated problem arbitration has become nugatory, inasmuch as, in the condition of its finances, an award against the Republic is worthless. unless its payment is secured by the pledge of at least some portion of the customs revenues. This pledge is ineffectual without actual delivery over of the custom-houses to secure the appropriation of the pledged revenues to the payment of the award. This situation again reacts injuriously upon the relations of the United States with other nations. For when an award and such security are thus obtained, as in the case of the Santo Domingo Improvement Company, some foreign government complains that the award conflicts with its rights, as a creditor, to some portion of these revenues under an alleged prior pledge; and still other governments complain that an award in any considerable sum, secured by pledges of the customs revenues, is prejudicial to the payment of their equally meritorious claims out of the ordinary revenues; and thus controversies are begotten between the United States and other creditor nations because of the apparent sacrifice of some of their claims, which may be just or may be grossly exaggerated, but which the United States Government can not inquire into without giving grounds of offense to other friendly creditor nations. Still further illustrations might easily be furnished of the hopelessness of the present situation growing out of the social disorders and the bankrupt finances of the Dominican Republic, where for considerable periods during recent years the bonds of civil society have been practically dissolved. "Under the accepted law of nations foreign governments are within their right, if they choose to exercise it, when they actively intervene in support of the contractual claims of their subjects. They sometimes exercise this power, and on account of commercial rivalries there is a growing tendency on the part of other governments more and more to aid diplomatically in the enforcement of the claims of their subjects. In view of the dilemma in which the Government of the United States is thus placed, it must either adhere to its usual attitude of nonintervention in such cases an attitude proper under normal conditions, but one which in this particular kind of case results to the disadvantage of its citizens in comparison with those of other states-or else it must, in order to be consistent in its policy, actively intervene to protect the contracts and concessions of its citizens engaged in agriculture, commerce, and transportation in competition with the subjects and citizens of other states. This course would render the United States the insurer of all the speculative risks of its citizens in the public securities and franchises of Santo Domingo. "Under the plan in the protocol herewith submitted to the Senate, insuring a faithful collection and application of the revenues to the specified objects, we are well assured that this difficult task can be accomplished with the friendly cooperation and good will of all the parties concerned, and to the great relief of the Dominican Republic. "The conditions in the Dominican Republic not only constitute a menace to our relations with other foreign nations, but they also concern the prosperity of the people of the island, as well as the security of American interests, and they are intimately associated with the interests of the South Atlantic and Gulf States, the normal expansion of whose commerce lies in that direction. At one time, and that only a year ago, three revolutions were in progress in the island at the same time. "It is impossible to state with anything like approximate accuracy the present population of the Dominican Republic. In the report of the Commission appointed by President Grant in 1871, the population was estimated at not over 150,000 souls, but according to the Statesman's Yearbook for 1904 the estimated population in 1888 is given as 610,000. The Bureau of the American Republics considers this the best estimate of the present population of the Republic. As shown by the unanimous report of the Grant Commission the public debt of the Dominican Republic, including claims, was $1,565.831.59. The total revenues were $772,684.75). The public indebtedness of the Dominican Republic, not including all claims, was on September 12 last, as the Department of State is advised, $32.280,000; the estimated revenues under Dominican management of custom-houses were $1,850,000; the proposed budget for current administration was $1,300,000, leaving only $550,000 to pay foreign and liquidated obligations, and payments on these latter will amount during the ensuing year to $1,700,000, besides $900,000 of arrearages of payments overdue, amounting in all to $2,600,000. It is therefore impossible under existing conditions, which are chronic, and with the estimated yearly revenues of the Republic, which during the last decade have averaged approximately $1,600,000, to defray the ordinary expenses of the Government and to meet its obligations. "The Dominican debt owed to European creditors is about $22,000,000, and of this sum over $18,000,000 is more or less formally recognized. The representatives of European governments have several times approached the Secretary of State setting forth the wrongs and intolerable delays to which they have been subjected at the hands of the successive governments of Santo Domingo in the collection of their just claims, and intimating that unless the Dominican Government should receive some assistance from the United States in the way of regulating its finances, the creditor governments in Europe would be forced to resort to more effective measures of compulsion to secure the satisfaction of their claims. "If the United States Government declines to take action and other foreign governments resort to action to secure payment of their claims, the latter would be entitled, according to the decision of The Hague tribunal in the Venezuelan cases, to the preferential payment of their claims; and this would absorb all the Dominican revenues and would be a virtual sacrifice of American claims and interests in the island. If, moreover, any such action should be taken by them, the only method to enable them to secure the payment of their claims would be to take possession of the custom-houses, and considering the state of the Dominican finances this would mean a definite and very possibly permanent occupation of Dominican territory, for no period |