GUAM. 



GUATEMALA. 



303 



the responsibility for the disturbance might be 

 determined by their successors. The cause was a 

 translation of the Gospel into modern Greek 

 which M. Psychari wished to introduce. He ob- 

 tained the support of Queen Olga, who in visiting 

 the camps and hospitals during the Turkish war 

 found that the soldiers had no version of the 

 Bible which they could read. The Queen induced 

 the Metropolitan, Procopius CEconimidis, to give 

 his approval to the translation, although the Holy 

 Synod had condemned it in 1899. The Queen her- 

 self had arranged for the publication of the trans- 

 lation, and some of the newspapers advocated 

 its official introduction. The scholars of Greece 

 generally looked upon the proposed innovation 

 as one tending to debase and denationalize the 

 language. Since the deliverance of Greece from 

 Turkish rule they had been endeavoring to extir- 

 pate the corruptions which four hundred and 

 thirty years of Venetian and Ottoman domination 

 had introduced into the language, to banish 

 Italian, Slavic, and Turkish words and idioms, 

 and to restore the Greek of Xenophon and of 

 Chrysostom until the official language and the 

 language of educated society was once again pure 

 Greek. Hence the Athenians, and most of all the 

 students, regarded as a national danger and a re- 

 lapse into barbarism the recognition and perpetua- 

 tion of the discarded vernacular through an au- 

 thorized popular translation of the Scriptures. 

 The members of the Government sympathized 

 with this view. The espousal of the Queen's proj- 

 ect by the Metropolitan led to violent demon- 

 strations by the students of the university. The 

 populace of the capital joined in the riots. The 

 troops interfered, and were assailed with stones 

 and revolvers, and they fired back, mostly in the 

 air. Many persons were killed or wounded. The 

 ministers held the Metropolitan responsible, and 

 demanded his resignation. He refused at first, 

 and afterward signed the resignation when the 

 King and Prime Minister both demanded it. The 

 Opposition in the Boule, led by M. Delyannis, ac- 

 cused the ministry of weakness and of being re- 

 sponsible for the loss of life, and then they in- 

 sisted on resigning. 



GUAM, the principal island in the Ladrone or 

 Marianne group, occupied by the United States 

 in the war with Spain and ceded by the treaty of 

 peace concluded at Paris on Dec. 11, 1898. It has 

 an area of nearly 200 square miles and about 

 9,000 inhabitants, descendants of immigrants from 

 the Philippine Islands. Of these 6,000 live in 

 Agana, the capital. There are 18 schools, and 

 90 per cent, of the people can read and write. 

 Both English and Spanish are spoken. The 

 island is well wooded and very fertile, having an 

 abundance of water. A garrison -of United States 

 marines is posted there, and coal is kept for 

 United States naval vessels. Many of the cap- 

 tured Filipino rebel chiefs have been sent td Guam 

 as prisoners of war. 



GUATEMALA, a republic of Central America. 

 The legislative power is vested in the National As- 

 sembly, containing 69 members, elected for four 

 years by universal adult male suffrage, and in 

 the Council of State, consisting of 13 members, 

 part of them elected by the Assembly and part 

 appointed by the President. The executive power 

 is vested in the President, who according to the 

 Constitution is elected by the people for six years, 

 and may not be a candidate for reelection. Man- 

 uel Estrada Cabrera was proclaimed President of 

 the republic by the National Assembly on Sept. 

 25, 1898, for the term ending March 15, 1905. The 

 Cabinet at the beginning of 1901 consisted of the 

 following members : Secretary of State for the In- 



terior and Justice, Juan J. Art/ucla; f<,v Foreign 

 Affairs, Juan Barrios; for War, L>tm Molina'; tor 

 Public Works and Agriculture, i:,n '.; Spinola; 

 for Finance, Guillermo Aguirrc; loi l'ubli<; In- 

 struction, J. A. Mandujano. 



Area and Population. The esthnaic.! ; x.i is 

 48,290 square miles, with 1,574,340 inhabitant in 

 1900. The number of births in 189!) was 71,'J'JS; 

 of deaths, 34,629. Education is compulsory ;md 

 gratuitous, and in 1895 there were 1,266 public 

 schools, with 64,015 pupils in attendance. 



Finances. The revenue collected in 1899 was 

 $8,566,906 in currency. The estimated revenue for 

 1900 was $9,770,000, and expenditure $9,611,201. 

 Of the revenue $4,340,000 was the estimated yield 

 of customs duties, $3,760,000 that of taxes, $1,370,- 

 000 the profits of monopolies, and $300,000 the 

 net revenue from posts and telegraphs. Of the ex- 

 penditures $54,620 were assigned to the National 

 Assembly, $72,000 to the executive, $1,421,524 to 

 the Department of the Interior and Justice, $146,- 

 100 to that of Foreign Affairs, $3,157,856 to that 

 of Finance, $950,388 to that of Fomento, $1,998,203 

 to that of War, $1,513,915 to that of Public In- 

 struction, and $296,595 to various expenses. 



The foreign debt on Jan. 1, 1900, amounted to 

 $9,087,465 in gold, the internal debt to $25,763,776 

 in silver. The foreign debt consisted of a 4-per- 

 cent, loan contracted in 1895, reported by the 

 council for foreign bondholders to amount to 

 1,571,768, including 88,968 of arrears of inter- 

 est; and in addition to this of loans contracted 

 in Germany and elsewhere in 1897 and 1898 

 amounting to $828,125 in gold and railroad and 

 other gold obligations amounting to $548,729. 

 The banks of the country were authorized in 

 October, 1898, to issue $6,000,000 in notes which 

 are legal tender for all obligations, even such as 

 have been contracted specifically in silver. Rev- 

 enues are collected in currency, and gold and 

 silver have disappeared from the country and 

 foreign exchange has risen to an enormous pre- 

 mium. 



The Army. The legal strength of the active 

 army is 673 superior officers, 2,305 subordinate 

 officers, and 56,915 men; that of the reserve, 29,439 

 of all ranks. The actual number of officers and 

 men in active service may be 7,000. By the law 

 of May 23, 1888, every able-bodied man between 

 the ages of eighteen and twenty-five who pays 

 less than $50 taxes is obliged to serve unless 

 he is an only son or a public functionary, and 

 after completing his term in the regular army he 

 is enrolled in the militia until he reaches the age 

 of fifty years. 



Commerce and Production. The soil of 

 Guatemala is exceedingly productive, and German 

 settlers and others have developed the cultivation 

 of coffee with profit in spite of an export .duty 

 which was fixed in 1900 at $6 a quintal. The 

 export of coffee in 1899 was 841,945 quintals. 

 The yield of tobacco was 9,350 quintals; of sugar, 

 113,570 quintals; of bananas, 11,872 bunches; of 

 cacao, 1,872 quintals. Wheat, corn, and beans are 

 the principal food crops. Grazing is good on 

 the higher table-lands. The number of horses in 

 1899 was estimated at 50,343; of cattle, 196,780; 

 of sheep, 77,600; of hogs, 29,784. The total value 

 of exports in 1899 was $8,370,555 in gold. The 

 export of coffee was valued at $7,390,477; of 

 sugar, $250,360; of bananas, $118,047; of rubber, 

 $256,921; of hides and skins, $267,970. The quan- 

 tity of coffee exported was 841,945 quintals, of 

 which 487,022 quintals were shipped to Germany, 

 183,960 to Great Britain, and 156,964 to the 

 United States. Of the imports of Guatemala 

 about 41 per cent, are supplied by the United 



