that the Black Republic owes at least thirty-two millions of gold dollars, a serious burden indeed for a country which is practically without commerce or profitable industry. It cannot be denied that the fiscal condition of the country is even more critical than that of the adjacent Dominican Republic, when, in 1907, the United States Government was compelled to intervene and to assume quite a definite measure of financial and political responsibility.

What our commerce was in Hayti nearly a hundred years ago, what a rich market has been closed to the commercial world by the political condition of the island, is shown very clearly by the following table of imports for the year 1825, drawn up by Mr. Mackenzie, then English Consul General in Hayti:

To-day all Haytian trade is centred in coffee. As a matter of fact these plantations are cared for by the beneficent hand of Nature, and not by the shiftless labourers. The heavy rains knock off the berries when they are ripe, seed them, and the result is the wonderful jungles of coffee bushes whose fecundity is nowhere else equalled.

Port-au-Prince, and indeed most of the Haytian ports, enjoy a very active press. In the capital there is the Moniteur, the official organ and a congressional record as well. It is rather a lethargic organ, however, and deputies sometimes have to wait six months to see themselves in print. These delays are due to the climate and not to palace arrogance, be

cause there are no opposition members in a Haytian congress— at least not open ones.

The daily papers are the Matin and the Soir, both of which appear in the morning singularly enough, and the Pacificateur and the Nouvelliste. There is a host of literary weeklies in which the poets and the romancers of the island air their talents, which are considerable.

APPENDIX C

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC IN 1910

NOTE I

I GIVE in full below the text of the convention signed between the Dominican Republic and the United States on February 8, 1907, and subsequently approved and ratified. Here we have a formula which will be appealed to and perhaps applied again and again in the course of the century that is opening. The Dominican convention might justly be termed the Monroe Doctrine of a more practical age.

"Whereas during disturbed political conditions in the Dominican Republic debts and claims have been created, some by regular and some by revolutionary governments, many of doubtful validity in whole or in part, and amounting in all to over $30,000,000 nominal or face value;

"And whereas the same conditions have prevented the peaceable and continuous collection and application of national revenues for payment of interest or principal of such debts or for liquidation and settlement of such claims, and the said debts and claims continually increase by accretion of interest and are a grievous burden upon the people of the Dominican Republic and a barrier to their improvement and prosperity;

"And whereas the Dominican Government has now effected a conditional adjustment and settlement of said debts and. claims under which all its foreign creditors have agreed to

accept about $12,407,000 for debts and claims amounting to about $21,184,000 of nominal or face value, and the holders of internal debts or claims of about $2,028,258 nominal or face value have agreed to accept about $645,827 therefor, and the remaining holders of internal debts or claims on the same basis as the assents already given will receive about $2,400,000 therefor, which sum the Dominican Government has fixed and determined as the amount which it will pay to such remaining internal-debt holders; making the total payments under such adjustment and settlement, including interest as adjusted and claims not yet liquidated, amount to not more than about $17,000,000;

"And whereas a part of such plan of settlement is the issue and sale of bonds of the Dominican Republic to the amount of $20,000,000, bearing 5 per cent. interest, payable in fifty years and redeemable after ten years at 1022, and requiring payment of at least 1 per cent. per annum for amortisation, the proceeds of said bonds, together with such funds as are now deposited for the benefit of creditors from customs revenues of the Dominican Republic heretofore received, after payment of the expenses of such adjustment, to be applied, first, to the payment of said debts and claims as adjusted; and, second, out of the balance remaining, to the retirement and extinction of certain concessions and harbour monopolies which are a burden and hindrance to the commerce of the country, and, third, the entire balance still remaining to the construction of certain railroads and bridges and other public improvements necessary to the industrial development of the country;

"And whereas the whole of said plan is conditioned and dependent upon the assistance of the United States in the collection of customs revenues of the Dominican Republic and the application thereof, so far as necessary, to the interest upon and the amortisation and redemption of said bonds, and the Dominican Republic has requested the United States to give, and the United States is willing to give, such assistance;

"The Dominican Government, represented by its Minister

of State for Foreign Relations, Emiliano Tejera, and its Minister of State for Finance and Commerce, Federico Velazquez Hernandez, and the United States, represented by Thomas C. Dawson, Minister Resident and Consul-General of the United States to the Dominican Republic, have agreed:

"First. That the President of the United States shall appoint a general receiver of Dominican customs, who, with such assistant receivers and other employees of the receivership as shall be appointed by the President of the United States in his discretion, shall collect all the customs duties accruing at the several custom-houses of the Dominican Republic until the payment or retirement of any and all bonds issued by the Dominican Government, in accordance with the plan and under the limitations as to terms and amounts hereinbefore recited, and said general receiver shall apply the sums so collected as follows: First, to paying the expenses of the receivership; second, to the payment of interest upon said bonds; third, to the payment of the annual sums provided for amortisation of said bonds, including interest upon all bonds held in sinking fund; fourth, to the purchase and cancellation, or the retirement and cancellation, pursuant to the terms thereof, of any of said bonds as may be directed by the Dominican Government; fifth, the remainder to be paid to the Dominican Government.

"The method of distributing the current collections of revenue in order to accomplish the application thereof as hereinbefore provided shall be as follows:

"The expenses of the receivership shall be paid by the receiver as they arise. The allowances to the general receiver and his assistants for the expenses of collecting the revenues shall not exceed 5 per cent. unless by agreement between the two governments. On the first day of each calendar month the sum of $100,000 shall be paid over by the receiver to the fiscal agent of the loan and the remaining collection of the last preceding month shall be paid over to the Dominican Government or applied to the sinking fund for the purchase or redemption of bonds as the Dominican Government shall direct.

"Provided, that in case the customs revenues collected by the general receiver shall in any year exceed the sum of $3,000,ooo, one-half of the surplus above such sum of $3,000,000 shall be applied to the sinking fund for the redemption of bonds.

"Second. The Dominican Government will provide by law for the payment of all customs duties to the general receiver and his assistants and will give to them all needful aid and assistance and full protection to the extent of its powers. The Government of the United States will give to the general receiver and his assistants such protection as it may find to be requisite for the performance of their duties.

"Third. Until the Dominican Republic has paid the whole amount of the bonds of the debt its public debt shall not be increased except by previous agreement with the United States Government. A like agreement shall be necessary to modify the import duties, it being an indispensable condition for the modification of such duties that the Dominican Executive demonstrate and that the President of the United States recognise that on the basis of exportations and importations to the like amount and the like character during the two years preceding that in which it is desired to make such modification, the total net customs receipts would at such altered rates of duties have been for each of such two years in excess of the sum of $2,000,000 United States gold.

Fourth. The accounts of the general receiver shall be rendered monthly to the Contaduría General of the Dominican Republic and to the State Department of the United States, and shall be subject to examination and verification by the appropriate officers of the Dominican and the United States Governments.

"Fifth. This agreement shall take effect after its approval by the Senate of the United States and the Congress of the Dominican Republic.

"Done in four originals, two being in the English language and two in Spanish, and the representatives of the high con