-70 ouba and pobto bioo 



to us from the fad thai ii gives our country a proportion- 

 ate exchange in trade for our purchases of its products. 



Baiti is in treaty relations Avitli most of the great coun- 

 tries of the world, and maintains six legations at Paris, 

 Washington, Berlin, Madrid, London, and San Domingo. 

 There are also more than fifty consuls-general, consuls, 

 and vice-consuls, stationed at as many different ports in 

 the United States, on the Isthmus of Panama, in the An- 

 tilles, Europe, and elsewhere. The island's diplomatic 

 representatives have always acquitted themselves credi- 

 tably, and each of them speaks the language of the country 

 to which he is accredited. Mr. Stephen Preston was the 

 Haitian minister at Washington continuously for nearly 

 twenty years, and during a third of that time he was the 

 dean of the diplomatic corps. As far as the general public 

 knows, there are pending between other governments and 

 Haiti no questions of sufficient importance to affect her 

 dignity, menace her autonomy, or interfere with the free 

 working of the ordinary machinery for administering her 

 internal affairs. 



It may be stated that, in the long run and in her own 

 way, Haiti always meets every financial obligation ; and it 

 is an acknowledged fact that she has sometimes consented 

 to pay, and has paid, claims which no great powers like 

 France or Great Britain would have been expected to rec- 

 ognize, taking this course in order to avoid what seemed 

 at the moment possible complications with foreign powers, 

 which have appeared to be only too ready to take advan- 

 tage of her comparative isolation and weakness. 



By far the most important agricultural product of Haiti 

 is coffee ; indeed, so important is this that the prosperity 

 of the country is measured by it from year to year. The 

 plant flourishes everywhere in the uplands above three 

 hundred feet. The quality is most excellent, but owing to 

 the imperfect and indifferent way in which, until within a 

 few years, it was gathered and prepared, it has never be- 

 come a favorite in the United States, and most of it finds 



