110 



COLOMBIA, UNITED STATES OF. 



concerning popular education. The Presi- 

 dent compliments the House of Representa- 

 tives for having unanimously approved the 

 item in the budget appropriating $100,000 to 

 found normal schools in the republic. This 

 unanimity, he thinks, shows the good dispo- 

 sition of all political parties to labor harmoni- 

 ously for the advancement- of the republic, 

 which fact, while honorable to the nation, will 

 be accepted with favor by all the friends of 

 constitutional liberty. In taking for a model 

 the United States, and adapting their institu- 

 tions to these republics, the common-school 

 system was left out. This the President deeply 

 regrets, and says that it is impossible to found 

 a republic without forming first the citizen, 

 and that the electoral arm and the school must 

 be the base on which rests every republic. A 

 country is neither republican nor free because 

 the constitution says so, but because the amount 

 of intelligence and the social condition permit 

 it to be so. The continued revolutions of 

 Spanish America, and the low state of in- 

 dustry, are due entirely to the ignorance of the 

 lower classes. The minority govern, and the 

 majority suffer. The President asserts that the 

 condition of the laboring classes is not any 

 better than under the colonial government. 

 The question of the intervention of the Gov- 

 ernment with public instruction he considers 

 definitely settled in the affirmative, and thinks 

 the system of education should conform in all 

 the schools, as tending to unite the States 

 themselves. The best mode of doing this 

 would be, in his opinion, for the Government to 

 take upon itself the forming of the teachers, 

 leaving to the States the primary schools. He 

 then recommends the passing of a law making 

 public instruction a branch of the administra- 

 tion, and independent of the university. How 

 little has as yet been done for public education 

 may be seen from the fact that the State of 

 Panama, probably the most enlightened of the 

 republic, during the last fiscal year, in which 

 the total income amounted to $203,173, ex- 

 pended $114,000 for keeping up a military 

 force, and only $3,122 for educational pur- 

 poses. 



Among the acts passed by Congress and sanc- 

 tioned by the President, was one relative to 

 telegraphic communication across the repub- 

 lic. The following are the principal clauses 

 of the act: The Executive is authorized to 

 concede permission, to any company or person 

 who may solicit it, to establish on the coasts 

 of the republic the extremities of telegraphic 

 submarine cables, which shall place the na- 

 tion in connection with other parts of the 

 world, as well as to unite the said cables with 

 land-lines of telegraphs. The telegraphs which 

 may be established in the national territory, 

 and to which the previous article refers, shall 

 be considered of public benefit, consequently 

 they will be exempt from the payment of all 

 national and State taxes or contributions. The 

 lines which accept this concession will, from 



this fact itself, be obliged to transmit gra- 

 tuitously all official communications of the 

 Government of the Union or of the States. In 

 the case of foreign war or interior commotions, 

 the lines will only operate under the surveil- 

 lance of the political authorities. 



On the 12th of May a bill was introduced 

 into the House, proposing the formation of a 

 solemn compact between all the Spanish- 

 American republics, for the purpose of obtain- 

 ing the independence of the Spanish Antilles 

 from the dominion of Spain, and the erection 

 of republics in those islands. The bill was 

 enthusiastically received and referred to a 

 special committee, which presented a lengthy 

 report on the relations of Spanish America to 

 Spain, concluding with the following resume 

 of the Cuban question : 



1. The cause for which Cuban patriots fight is the 

 same for which Colombia fought incessantly from 

 1810 to 1824. 



2. The interests of self-preservation, and our duty 

 as a civilized and Christian nation, justify in the most 

 complete manner Colombian intervention. 



3. The aggressions of monarchical Europe against 

 the liberty and independence of America always 

 have had and will have for a base Spanish dominion 

 in Cuba. 



4. The policy of the United States cannot serve as 

 a guide to Colombia on this occasion. 



5. The resources we may need for this war are not 

 beyond our means. 



6. The time has arrived when Colombia should as- 

 sume in the politics of South America the position 

 to which she is called by her topographical situation, 

 her historical traditions, her population, and her po- 

 litical conquests. 



The House of Representatives, on the 17th 

 of June, passed the bill by a large majority ; 

 the Senate, however, refused to concur in it. 



A new treaty for an interoceanic canal 

 across the Isthmus of Darien was concluded 

 between General Hurlburt, the United States 

 minister, and the Colombian commissioners, 

 Sefior Justo Avozomena and Dr. Jacob San- 

 chez. The Colombian Congress approved the 

 treaty, with some important modifications. 

 The new form of section 11 is in effect a re- 

 fusal of Colombia to grant exclusive right to 

 the United States or any other nation to send 

 armed vessels through the canal in time of 

 war ; but merchant-vessels, of any nation that 

 has guaranteed to Colombia the sovereignty 

 of the canal, will always have the free use of 

 it. That is, that in time of war neither the 

 United States nor any other power shall be 

 allowed to pass their armed vessels through 

 the canal. It was commonly expected in Co- 

 lombia that these modifications would not 

 prove acceptable to the Government of the 

 United States. 



No official report on the expedition which 

 started from the United States in the Nipsic and 

 Guard for the survey of the Isthmus of Darien 

 in 1869, under Commander Selfridge, was made 

 public up to the close of the year 1870 ; but it 

 is evident that no satisfactory solution of the 

 problem has been found, and that part of the 

 isthmus still remains to be surveyed. The 



