COLOMBIA. 



131 



412 francs, and attempted in December, 1888, to 

 raise a loan of 000,0 00,000 francs. Failing in this, 

 the company suspended operations in March, 1889, 

 and went into liquidation. An extension of time 

 for the completion of the work was granted by the 

 Colombian Government in 1894, when a new com- 

 pany was formed which undertook to finish the 

 canal in ten years from that date. The new com- 

 pany started with a capital of 65,000,000 francs, 

 with which it expected to demonstrate that the 

 plan of a ship-canal with locks was quite practi- 

 cable and commercially profitable, and thus at- 

 tract sufficient fresh capital to complete the work. 

 In 1900 a further extension of six years was ob- 

 tained, making the date when the canal is to 

 be completed April, 1910. The main task per- 

 formed by the new company has been the reduc- 

 tion of the Culebra ridge, because this was looked 

 upon as the chief engineering difficulty. The 

 cutting has been so far advanced as to show that 

 this obstacle can be overcome. About 3,500 men 

 have been employed for five years on this part of 

 the canal, and in 1901 the company had funds re- 

 maining to carry on the work for one year more. 

 The cost of completing the canal was estimated in 

 1899 at 512,000,000 francs. The total length of the 

 route is 46 miles. The prospect of raising capital 

 in France was so slim that the directors of the 

 company began negotiations with the United 

 States Government for the sale of the concession 

 and the unfinished work. They set a price high 

 enough to reimburse the original shareholders, or 

 as an alternative proposed that the French com- 

 pany should be a partner in the canal with the 

 United States Government. The French engi- 

 neers estimated in 1901 that the canal could be 

 completed with an additional expenditure of not 

 more than 250,000,000 francs. A commission of 

 engineers which examined the two routes for the 

 United States pronounced the Panama and the 

 Nicaragua projects both to be feasible. A new 

 effort to raise a capital of 500,000,000 francs in 

 France met with no response. The Colombian 

 Government studied a scheme for completing the 

 canal by its own means, employing convicts sen- 

 tenced to long terms to carry on the excavations. 

 The average number of such prisoners is 1,000. 

 The legality of the last extension conceded to the 

 new Panama company was disputed, and in case 

 the courts should decide it to be invalid the Co- 

 lombian Government considered the alternate 

 plan of offering the concession to the United 

 States Government with absolute control and the 

 perpetual lease of such adjacent territory as may 

 be necessary. Negotiations between the new 

 French company and the United States Govern- 

 ment were still pending. The American engineers 

 estimated the value of the useful work done by 

 the French companies to be not over $43,000,000, 

 less than a fourth of the capital that had been 

 spent. The American experts, while approving in 

 general the plans of the French engineers, re- 

 garded the Culebra dam, designed to impound the 

 waters in the rainy season and store them for 

 feeding the canal in the dry season, as unsafe 

 unless built up from the solid rock instead of 

 from a bed of clay. They found by boring that 

 underneath this bed of clay, between it and the 

 rock, there was a thick stratum of sand. 



Civil War. The revolutionary invaders hav- 

 ing been driven out of the country, and the in- 

 surgents dispersed before the opening of the year 

 1901, the Government officially declared peace 

 throughout the territories of the republic, and de- 

 creed that the Magdalena w r ar flotilla should be 

 employed to carry import and export cargoes. 

 Shipments of gold from the mines of Antioquia 



and Tolima, and also of coffee, were made in con- 

 formity with this provision, and COM -i.^ri mentis for 

 Colombia arrived. In January bodi".- of insur- 

 gents again took the field and attacked the Gov- 

 ernment troops at Panama and other points, but 

 gained no advantage and soon suicided. The 

 causes of the civil war, which had already bist.ed 

 a year, go back to the dictatorship of \)\\ Nunex, 

 who was elected President in 1880 by the Lib, -in Is, 

 the party that had governed the country for 

 twenty years, and in 1885 went over to the Con- 

 servatives, and with their support ruled as a dic- 

 tator till 1895. After abrogating the Constitu- 

 tion, his first step was to repudiate the foreign 

 debt. Unable to borrow more money abroad, 

 and needing funds to satisfy his supporters, he 

 founded a national bank with a monopoly of the 

 banking business, obtaining the capital by dis- 

 counting with the Panama Railroad Company the 

 payments of $500,000 a year in gold due to the 

 Government according to the contract made at 

 the time the concession w r as given.- For an ad- 

 vance of $3,000,000 he released the company from 

 the annual payments for twenty-five years. The 

 national bank issued non-convertible paper 

 money, which was declared to be the legal tender 

 for all debts, and the only lawful money, it being 

 a punishable offense to make contracts stipulat- 

 ing that payments should be made in any other 

 kind of money. The amounts of the earlier emis- 

 sions were made public, but subsequently currency 

 was secretly issued by the bank of unknown 

 amounts, and the issues have continued until the 

 paper dollar, with which all debts contracted in 

 gold have been wiped out, was worth only a few 

 cents. While the rate of exchange was rising 

 rapidly a moratorium was decreed, enabling 

 debtors to postpone payment until the currency 

 became almost worthless. The premium on gold 

 has recently fluctuated between 3,500 and 4,000. 

 President Caro, who succeeded Nunez, continued 

 his arbitrary methods and ruinous financial ex- 

 pedients. The valetudinarian Sanclemente was 

 selected as Caro's successor to be President in 

 name only, and he immediately resigned his func- 

 tions into the hands of the Vice-President. The 

 complaints which the Liberals make of the rule of 

 the Clerical Conservative party are grave and nu- 

 merous. The Government has increased tenfold 

 the taxes bearing upon both natives and for- 

 eigners. Fruit, gold, silver, cacao, hides, and rub- 

 ber, which were formerly exported free of duty, 

 must now pay heavy export duties. Absolute 

 monopolies for the manufacture of salt, matches, 

 cigarettes, and liquors have been sold to different 

 companies, also the rights of the pearl fisheries. 

 A concession for running lotteries was sold, al- 

 though previously this form of gambling was 

 little practised in Colombia. Bull-fights, cockpits, 

 and gambling-houses were licensed. The endow- 

 ments of orphan asylums and hospitals were ap- 

 propriated by the Government. Articles destined 

 for the use of the clergy, convents, and religious- 

 institutions of all kinds were made free of duty, 

 and it is charged that, taking advantage of thi& 

 law, the industrial schools managed by monks 

 have been turned into great manufacturing estab- 

 lishments. The court of audit which formerly 

 examined and made public all the accounts of the 

 Government has not been allowed to exercise its 

 functions freely in recent years, and public con- 

 tracts, which were formerly given to the lowest 

 bidders, have been privately awarded. 



By abolishing obligatory lay education and 

 placing all the schools under the control of the 

 clergy the Government has given the greatest of- 

 fense* to the Liberals, who say that the nation is 



