386 



HOBART, VERE H. 



HONDURAS. 



the tide of immigration from the United States, 

 in the north, and the Argentine Republic, in 

 the south. 



The President of the Republic is Sefior Pon- 



University of Ziirich as Professor of Theology, 

 and in 1861 returned to Heidelberg, where he 

 remained until his death. He lectured not 

 only on the Old and New Testaments, but also -_ - - - - 



on the Oriental and particularly on the Semitic ciano Leiva. The Minister of the Interi 

 languages. He wrote commentaries upon the 

 Psalms (1835-'36), the twelve minor prophets 



(1838), Jeremiah (1841), Ezekiel (1847), Daniel J.Lopez. . 



(1850), and Canticles (1855). He also wrote The bishop of Comayagua is J. D. Zepeda 

 "Ueber Johannes Markus und seine Schrif- (1861). . 



ten" (1843), " Urgeschichte und Mythologie The national income is unofficially estimated 

 der Philistaer " (1845) "Die Grabschrift des to amount to some $400,000, about two-thirds 

 Eschmunazar" (1855), Geschichte des Volkes of which are derived from the custom-house 

 " "Die Inschrift des Mesha" and the monopolies. 



\jlClLL\J JLJWlTWH JL A1V* 4ULJJUU0W* v* * 



of Foreign Affairs is Sefior A. Zufiiga ; of Fi- 

 nance, Senor E. Ferrari ; and of War, Sefior 



Israel" (1866), 



(1870) and "Das Buch Hiob ; ubersetzt und 



ausgelegt"(18T4). 



HOBART, Lord VERB HENKY, an English 

 statesman, born December 8, 1818 ; died April 

 27, 1875. He was the eldest son of the Earl 

 of Buckingham, and was educated at Trinity 

 College, Oxford. In 1842 he was appointed a 

 clerk in the Board of Trade, and then became 

 private secretary to Sir George Grey. In 1861 

 he was appointed a special commissioner to in- 

 vestigate the condition of the Turkish finances, 

 and afterward became director-general of the 

 Imperial Ottoman Bank at Constantinople. 

 In 1872 he succeeded Lord Napier as Governor 

 of Madras, which position he held up to his 

 death. 



HONDURAS (REPtTBLicA DE HONDURAS), 



The foreign debt, at the end of 1872, stood 

 as follows : 



British loan of 1867, 10 per cent., and at the 

 rate of 80 per cent $1,000,000 



French loan of 1868, @ 6 per cent, and at the rate 



of 75 percent 2,490,108 



British loan of 1870, @ 10 per cent, interest, and 

 at the rate of 80 per cent 2,500.000 



Total $5,990,108 



All the loans were contracted for the pur- 

 pose of building an interoceanic railway in the 

 republic.* 



The following is an extract from the report 

 of the council of foreign bondholders on Span- 

 ish-American states, published in London in 

 1875: 



Although, with the cooperation of the Foreign Of- 

 fice, the council have made application to the Gov- 

 f r( 1 ernment of Honduras for placing the customs reve- 

 one of the five independent states of Central nueg fAmapala under an agent of the bondholders, 

 America, lying between the thirteenth and six- ^ meet the interest of the Federal five percent, debt, 

 teenth parallels of north latitude, and 83 12' no result has yet been obtained. The appointment 

 " ' It is bounded north 



and 89 47' west longitude, 

 by Guatemala and the gulf of its own name ; 

 southeast by the Caribbean Sea ; south by Ni- 

 caragua, Fonseca Bay, and San Salvador ; and 

 west by the latter republic and that of Guate- 

 mala. Its territory embraces an area of 58,- 

 168 square miles; and its population, in 1874, 

 was estimated at 351,700. The capital, Co- 

 mayagua, has a population of from 7,000 to 

 8,000. 



Honduras, in common with all the other 

 Latin- American states, is desirous of attract- 

 ing immigrants to its shore's, and the govern- 

 ment of Comayagua has even promulgated a 

 law regulating the conditions upon which the 

 colonists will be received. They will be gov- 

 erned by the same laws as the natives of the 

 country ; the lands given to them will, after 

 five consecutive years of cultivation, become 

 their own property ; they will be exempt from 

 military duty for the space of ten years, save 

 in case of foreign invasion ; they may, if not 

 Roman Catholics, exercise their religion in 

 private, and have their own cemeteries; they 

 will be exempt from all taxation, will be enti- 

 tled to granted patents for any invention of 

 their own or the introduction of machinery 

 into the country ; and they will be at liberty 

 at any time to sell their property and leave 

 the country. Favorable, however, as these 

 conditions may appear, it is doubtful whether 

 they will suffice to turn aside any portion of 



of a vice-consul by her Majesty's Government may 

 facilitate the required measure. 



The strife of internal factions, and the interven- 

 tion of those of neighboring territories, keep the 

 country in so wretched a condition that any satis- 

 factory arrangement regarding the comparatively 

 small amount of the old Federal debt of 1867 may 

 yet be delayed. 



The loans issued in England and France, in the 

 name of Honduras, for a projected interoceanic 

 railway, remain in the same hopeless condition, and 

 the hardship inflicted on many of the holders is 

 very great. 



An official journal of Honduras gave place in 

 its columns to the statement that, for the bet- 

 ter arrangement of the debts of the interior, 

 caused by successive public disorders from 

 1870 to 1874, a Junta of public credit has been 

 established by the Government in the capital 

 of each department. 



President Leiva, in his message to the Con- 

 gress of 1875, observes that " with some for- 

 eign governments there are claims outstand- 

 ing, caused by acts for which neither the peo- 

 ple of Honduras nor the present administration 

 can be held to account." 



He also added, in regard to the railway 

 question, that the affairs of the interoceanic 

 line were in a state by no means satisfactory. 

 The company organized according to the new 

 contract made in London, on July 12, 1873, 



* For full statements of this debt, and of the finances in 

 general of Honduras, see the ANNUAL CYCLOPEDIA for 1872, 

 1873, and 1874. 



