HAYTI. 



HONDURAS. 



323 



erty, if not actually fomenting a movement for the 

 restoration of the monarchy, Sir Julian Paunce- 

 fote, under instructions from his Government, as- 

 sured the State Department on March 21 that there 

 was no ground whatever for these allegations. 



HAYTI, a republic in the West Indies occupying 

 the western third of the island of Hayti. The legis- 

 lative body is the National Assembly, consisting of 

 a Senate of 39 members and a House of Representa- 

 tives containing 95 members, the latter elected for 

 three years by the votes of all adult male citizens 

 having a regular means of livelihood, while the 

 Senators are chosen by the lower house from lists 

 submitted by the President and by electoral col- 

 leges. The presidential term is seven years. Gen. 

 Tiresias Augustin Simon Sam was elected on April 

 1, 1896, after the death of President Hippolyte, for 

 the term ending in May, 1902. His Cabinet in the 

 beginning of 1898 was composed as follows: Secre- 

 tary of Foreign Affairs, Finance, and Commerce, 

 Solon Menos; Secretary of War and Marine, S. 

 Marius : Secretary of Justice and Worship, A. 

 Dyer ; Secretary of Public Instruction, M. Chanzy ; 

 Secretary of Public Works, M. Arteaud. 



The republic has an area of 11,070 square miles, 

 with a population in 1894 of 1,210,625, of whom 90 

 per cent, are negroes and the rest mostly mulattoes. 

 The people, who are descended from the slaves of 

 French planters, speak a dialect of French and pro- 

 fess the Catholic religion. There are 400 public 

 schools, on which the Government expends $1,000,- 

 000 a year. The commercial products of Hayti are 

 coffee, cacao, and logwood. Coffee is the staple 

 crop, and though the method of cultivation is of 

 the rudest kind, the Haytian berry obtains a good 

 price in the market. Plows are not used by the 

 natives. Small patches of coffee adjoin their huts, 

 scattered in the midst of a general wilderness, ex- 

 cept in some of the fertile valleys, and even there 

 the coffee trees are left in a wild state, or, at the 

 most, the soil is loosened and weeded merely around 

 each plant once or twice a year. Foreign enter- 

 prise, by which better methods might be introduced, 

 is regarded with jealousy by the natives, and so 

 long as the article in the Constitution forbidding 

 alien ownership of land is retained no improvement 

 can be looked for. Foreigners have begun to export 

 mahogany, of which there is an almost inexhaustible 

 supply, but native jealousy renders the obtaining of 

 it as well as of logwood somewhat difficult and 

 irregular. The crops of coffee in 1897 and 1898 were 

 partial failures, owing to two successive droughts, 

 and at the same time the market price sank in 

 Europe. This, attended by a crisis in Government 

 finances, caused the premium on gold to rise to 195 

 in the spring of 1898. 



The Government threatened to seize the Clyde 

 steamer "Navahoe" in May for a fine which the 

 owners would not pay, considering it to be a cor- 

 rupt demand based on a technical error in the ship's 

 manifest. After an investigation the United States 

 minister warned the Haytian Government that it 

 would have to pay damages if it detained any vessel 

 of the Clyde line. President Sam had a conference 

 with President Ulisses Heureaux of Santo Domingo 

 at Jacmel to discuss the boundary dispute, which 

 both were willing to submit to the arbitration of the 

 Pope. Hayti offered to pay an indemnity to secure 

 the desired natural boundary. Navassa island, 

 which was declared American by right of discov- 

 ery in 1856, was abandoned temporarily during the 

 war with Spain by the company that works the 

 guano deposits. The Haytians have always dis- 

 puted the American claim, and while the island 

 was left unoccupied a party landed and laid claim 

 to it as Haytian territory. 



HOLLAND. (See NETHERLANDS.) 



HONDURAS, a republic in Central America. 

 The legislative power is vested in a Congress of 

 Deputies containing 46 members, 3 from each 

 department and 1 from Bay Island, elected for 

 four years by universal manhood suffrage. The 

 President is elected for four years by popular suf- 

 frage. Policarpo Bonilla was elected President for 

 the term beginning Jan. 1, 1895. The Council of 

 Ministers at the beginning of 1898 was composed as 

 follows: Minister of Foreign Affairs and Acting 

 Minister of Justice and Public Instruction, Dr. C. 

 Bonilla ; Minister of Public Works, Dr. E. C. Fia- 

 llos ; Minister of War, Gen. J. M. Reina. 



Area and Population. The republic has an 

 area estimated at 45,250 square miles, with about 

 400,000 inhabitants. Education is free, secular, and 

 compulsory, and there are a university, 8 male and 

 3 female colleges, and 683 schools, in which 23,767 

 pupils are instructed. 



Finances. The revenue for the year ending 

 July 30, 1896, was $1,901,606, and the' expenditure 

 $2,264,586. Of the receipts $762,859 came from 

 duties on spirits and tobacco, stamps, and other in- 

 ternal taxes, and $627,512 from customs duties. A 

 New York syndicate negotiated with the Govern- 

 ment for the privilege of building a railroad from 

 the Atlantic to the Pacific in connection with a line 

 of coasting steamers, and offered to assume the debt 

 and give the Government $500,000 a year for admin- 

 istrative expenses in return for a concession of the 

 customs and other revenues. The Government be- 

 tween 1867 and 1870 contracted four loans amount- 

 ing to 5,398,570 sterling. No interest has been 

 paid since 1872. There is an internal debt of about 

 $6,000,000. 



Commerce and Production. The cultivation 

 of bananas, coffee, tobacco, sugar, and corn is ex- 

 tending. The people raise large numbers of cattle. 

 The mineral resources are varied and valuable, in- 

 cluding gold, platinum, silver, copper, lead, zinc, 

 iron, antimony, nickel, and coal. 



Communications. The railroad from Puerto 

 Cortez to San Pedro Sula and La Pimiento, 57 

 miles, is being carried through to the Pacific coast, 

 and another has been contracted for to connect 

 Puerto Cortez with Trujillo. The telegraphs have 

 a length of 2,667 miles. 



Proposed Central American Union. Hon- 

 duras entered with Nicaragua and Salvador into the 

 federative scheme of which the first fruit was the 

 Central American Diet for united action in foreign 

 affairs. A convention met at Managua in Septem- 

 ber. 1898, for the purpose of formulating a federal 

 constitution for the United States of Central Amer- 

 ica, under which name the states forming the 

 Greater Republic of Central America were to be 

 joined in a national union, with a common Presi- 

 dent and Congress. The Constitution was drawn 

 up and signed by the delegates, who appointed a 

 commission consisting of Dr. Salvador Callego, of 

 Salvador, Manuel C. Matus, of Nicaragua, and Mi- 

 guel Agnelugarte,of Honduras, to meet at Amapala, 

 Honduras, on Nov. 1, and organize the Government 

 of the federation, which they were empowered to 

 administer until the installation of the regular Gov- 

 ernment on March 15. They were authorized to 

 perfect the scheme of the new federation and to 

 arrange for the election on Dec. 13 of a President, 

 Senators, Representatives, and federal judges to 

 hold office for four years. J. Rosa Pacose, of Sal- 

 vador, had been selected as the first President of 

 the federal republic. While the federal commis- 

 sion was engaged in its task at Amapala and was 

 generally recognized as having superseded the Pres- 

 idents of the three republics, who assumed the 

 grade of governors, the opposition to federation 

 grew among the Salvadoreans, who expected that 



