124 



CHILI. 



joined by dissentient Liberals, it was suspected 

 that the coalition intended to take advantage of 

 tho division in the Liberal party to elect the 

 head of the Conservative party, Augustin Ed- 

 wards, to the presidency and undo the demo- 

 cratic reforms. The President, on the other 

 hand, persisting in the policy that had at first 

 won praise from every quarter, and finding new 

 agents when his old coadjutors stood aloof or 

 went over to the other side, was accused of seek- 

 ing to form a personal party in order to perpet- 

 uate his power by nominating some mere tool to 

 succeed him as President. In January, 1890, the 

 Opposition were strong enough to place their 

 candidate in the chair when the House of Rep- 

 resentatives organized. The ministry resigned, 

 and a conflict between the Executive and legis- 

 lative branches of the Government was openly 

 begun when the President appointed a Cabinet 

 of his own selection, giving a portfolio to the 

 obnoxious Sanfuentes, and placing at its head 

 Adolfo Ibanez, who could receive no support 

 from Congress. This ministry had to face an 

 overwhelming majority against the President, 

 which treated him as a dictator and began to 

 pass hostile laws and resolutions that were ve- 

 toed, and refused to consider the measures that 

 he recommended. 



The ministers were cited before the Chambers 

 and questioned about the manner of their ap- 

 pointment. They either declined to answer, or 

 answered in a way that increased the animosity 

 of Congress, which finally passed a vote of cen- 

 sure, in obedience to which, as was usual, the 

 Cabinet resigned. Then Balmaceda appointed a 

 ministry in open defiance of Congress, with San- 

 fuentes at its head, the man who was already 

 spoken of as his selected candidate for the presi- 

 dency. He prepared for the struggle that he 

 invited by removing the chiefs of the adminis- 

 tration of the departments and replacing them 

 with men devoted to himself and his policy, and 

 making changes in the police, the militia, and, to 

 some extent, in the army and navy commands. 

 The press denounced him as a dictator, and in- 

 dignation meetings were held in every town. 

 Balmaceda and his supporters pretended to be 

 not only the champions of the people against 

 the aristocracy, but of the principle of Chili for 

 the Chilians. The banking house of Edwards, 

 the firm of the Conservative leader, was associ- 

 ated with Col. North, the Englishman, in the 

 ownership of vast nitrate deposits in the north. 

 The Chilians are as jealous of foreign influence 

 as any of the South American peoples, and 

 looked on the growing activity of foreign enter- 

 prise in the country with mistrust. The acqui- 

 sition of railroads not already owned by the state 

 and the reservation of mining rights for Chilian 

 citizens formed a part of Balmaceda's declared 

 policy. The presence of European workmen in 

 the mines, seaports, and nitrate districts was re- 

 sented by the native laborers, and in June a 

 series of riots broke out in Valparaiso, Coquimbo, 

 Iquique, Arica, and other places. These were 

 ascribed by the Opposition to machinations of 

 the President, whose motives were supposed to 

 be to gain a popular following and to produce 

 disturbances that would furnish an excuse for a 

 dictatorship. The administrative personnel was 

 so changed that intendentes of provinces, gov- 



ernors of departments, subdelegados of counties, 

 inspectors of police, commanders of the national 

 guard, and chiefs of police stood at the beck of 

 Balmaceda, ready to act in concert. 



The Congress, when it met in ordinary session 

 on June 1, instead of summoning the ministers 

 before it for explanations, as was usual, carried 

 a vote of censure in both houses, and showed a 

 firm determination to compel the President to 

 take his Cabinet officers from the majority and 

 remove all officials who were attached to his 

 political fortunes. The time was approaching 

 for the election of municipal officers, Deputies, 

 and Senators. These minor elections would vir- 

 tually decide the subsequent election of the 

 President. It was a novel thing for the Con- 

 gress to be in antagonism to the President, and 

 for it to attempt to secure the nomination and 

 election of a successor opposed to his policy. 

 Yet such a contingency had long been contem- 

 plated by Balmaceda's former party, which had 

 adopted the principle of liberty of election as 

 the main plank in its platform, and proposed 

 schemes for purifying the ballot and taking the 

 electoral machinery out of the hands of the Cen- 

 tral Government. To deprive the President of 

 his power to control the elections and prevent 

 the election of Sanfuentes, who was already an- 

 nounced as the official candidate, a municipal bill 

 was introduced in Congress which would have 

 substituted municipal for Executive influence at 

 the polls very effectually. This bill the Presi- 

 dent declared he would never allow to become a 

 law, because it was directed against himself, and 

 was contrary to the spirit of the Constitution. 

 The outcry against Sanfuentes as a puppet of 

 Balmaceda caused the President to ask him to 

 resign his portfolio and his candidacy. The 

 Congress attempted to force the President to 

 dismiss his personal Cabinet and appoint par- 

 liamentary ministers, by not passing the con- 

 tribution bill for the collection of revenue in 

 the custom house and other branches of the 

 public service. The period of eighteen months 

 for which it had been voted expired when the 

 session came to an end on Sept. 30. To end 

 the deadlock by a settlement of the practical 

 question at issue, the President made a prop- 

 osition that a presidential candidate should be 

 selected by a convention of all the parties. With 

 the object of enabling the Conservatives to take 

 part, he suggested that no political programme 

 should be drawn up, and in order to insure the 

 election of a candidate not distasteful to either 

 the Nationalists, the Conservatives, the Radicals, 

 or the various Liberal groups, he requested that 

 a two-third vote of the convention should be 

 necessary to proclaim a candidate. If the ma- 

 jority in Congress thought that the President 

 could influence that proportion, they might 

 make it a three-fourth vote, or four-fifth, or any 

 number that they chose. This scheme was at 

 first regarded with favor, but on the following 

 day the House decided to reject it, and continue 

 the contest with the. Executive. 



The Capitol was filled with people from all parts 

 of the country, who demanded that Balmaceda 

 should make terms with Congress and keep the 

 government on a legal basis or resign the presi- 

 dency. A committee of influential citizens, rep- 

 resenting all parties and classes of society, with 



