80 



BUREAU OF AMERICAN REPUBLICS, INTERNATIONAL. 



mostly Macedonian. The Zontcheff wing, com- 

 posed* of delegates from 45 societies in Bulgaria 

 and Macedonia, excluded the Sarafolf delegates, 

 over the vote of 15 of the delegates admitted, 

 who declared themselves also partizans of Sara- 

 folT, who therefore in the rupture that followed 

 commanded the allegiance of the larger and more 

 vigorous section of the party. The police seized 

 documents of the central committee which proved 

 that Gen. Zontcheff was actively fitting out 

 bands to operate in Macedonia. He was there- 

 fore arrested on Sept. 2 and interned in his na- 

 tive place. Other members of the committee and 

 ex-officers were arrested or took to flight. The 

 fight ing in Macedonia, which in other years 

 comes to an end early in June, continued through 

 summer and autumn till the mountains were cov- 

 ered with snow. There were 80,000 troops in 

 Macedonia, most of them quartered on the peo- 

 ple, a serious burden in addition to the taxes, 

 which took a fifth of their income. Neither the 

 Bulgarian bands nor the Macedonian secret soci- 

 eties gave much trouble to the authorities who 

 in Monastir restored a tolerable degree of order 

 and made a show of governing in a civilized 

 manner under a ro/i who was a capable and 

 enlightened administrator, but unable to restrain 

 tlie corrupt practises of his subordinates. In 

 Uskub and wherever the Albanians predominated 

 the semblance of an insurrection kept up by the 

 Bulgarian bands inflamed the arrogance of the 

 Albanians, which the Turks have never in the 

 course of ages attempted to subdue, and pro- 

 voked them to acts of cruelty and rapacity that 

 made the condition of the Christians unbear- 

 able. 



A consular convention between Bulgaria and 

 Austria-Hungary was concluded and ratified by 

 the Sobranje. The narrow and uncertain major- 

 ity supporting the Government in the Sobranje 

 A\HS unsatisfactory to the ministers, who seized 

 an opportunity to dissolve the Chamber again. 

 The elections, which took place in September, 

 were more easily influenced by the Government 

 than the last ones. The heterogeneous Sobranje 

 gave place to one in which the Government party 

 had an overwhelming majority. 



BUREAU OF AMERICAN REPUBLICS, 

 INTERNATIONAL. This is the representa- 

 tive organization in Washington, D. C., of an 

 agreement entered into by the independent re- 

 publics of North and South America for the pur- 

 |MC of bringing about closer trade relations 

 between them, to disseminate information by 

 the publication of their tariff laws and all other 

 laws and provisions that may be enacted by 

 them relating to trade and navigation, and for 

 the collection and publication of useful statistics 

 and general information of interest to all. The 

 organization was the one practical outcome of 

 the first International Conference, commonly 

 known as the Pan-American Congress, held in 

 Washington in 1889-'90. Article II of the recom- 

 mendations adopted by that conference on this 

 subject Fays: 



" The international union shall be represented 

 by a bureau to be established in the city of 

 Washington under the supervision of the Secre- 

 tary of State of the United States, and to be 

 charged with the care of all the transactions and 

 publications, and with all the correspondence 

 pertaining to the international union." 



It was also stipulated that this bureau should 

 be called The Commercial Bureau of the Amer- 

 ican Kepublics, and that its organ should be a 

 publication to be entitled the Bulletin of the 

 Commercial Bureau of the American Republics. 



The scope and field of this publication was ex- 

 plained, and an estimate was made of the prob- 

 able expense of maintaining the bureau, which 

 was not to exceed $30,000 a year. Each republic 

 was required to pay its share of this expense 

 in proportion to its population, and a schedule 

 of the first year's proportionate payment of each 

 country was embodied in the report of the com- 

 mittee presenting the project to the conference. 

 This proposed assessment of each country forms 

 the following table: 



Argentine Republic $1,462 50 



Bolivia 45000 



Brazil 5,25000 



Chile 937 00 



Colombia 1,46250 



Costa Rica 7500 



Ecuador 375 00 



Guatemala 525 00 



Haiti 187 00 



In order that no delay should occur in organ- 

 izing the bureau, the Government of the United 

 States was asked to advance the expenses each 

 year. The State Department at once took up 

 the project, and the bureau was organized in 

 Washington, practically under the directorship of 

 the Secretary of State, with William E. Curtis as 

 director. Regardless of the amount of work ac- 

 complished and the information disseminated 

 through its publications, the bureau led a pre- 

 carious existence, owing to the difficulty of ob- 

 taining information and the cooperation of the 

 many countries that had entered into the agree- 

 ment. The first year's report shows that 28 pub- 

 lications were issued besides the regular bul- 

 letin, these including handbooks of the republics, 

 patent and trade-mark laws, import duties, and 

 commercial directories. The commercial direct- 

 ories were intended for the use of manufacturers 

 and merchants in forwarding catalogues and cir- 

 culars and opening correspondence, and the de- 

 mand for them, especially in the United States, 

 demonstrated the eagerness on the part of those 

 for whom they were intended to introduce their 

 wares into markets hitherto practically unknown 

 or unsought. A perplexing question was at once 

 pressed upon the attention of the executive officer 

 of the bureau owing to the demand for its pub- 

 lications, the demand increasing so rapidly as 

 to make compliance impossible because of the 

 limited editions. This led to the issuing of a 

 circular in October, 1893, giving a list of the pub- 

 lications that had not been exhausted, with a 

 price affixed, for which the copies could be se- 

 cured by application to the Government Printing- 

 Office. This list contained 39 publications ob- 

 tainable, out of 69 that had been published by the 

 bureau since its organization. 



A resolution adopted by the International Con- 

 ference recommended the adoption of a common 

 nomenclature that should designate in alpha- 

 betical order, with equivalent terms in English, 

 Spanish, and Portuguese, the commodities on 

 which import duties are levied, to be used by 

 all the American nations for the purpose of levy- 

 ing customs imports, and also to be used in ship- 

 ping manifests, consular invoices, entries, clear- 

 ance petitions, and other customs documents. 

 This work was turned over to the bureau and 

 conducted under its direction by authority of the 

 acts of Congress of July 14, 1890, and July 10. 

 1892. The work was advanced as rapidly ;i- 

 |xi--~iMe. but it entailed a great amount of labor, 

 and though the two appropriations of $10.000 

 each were exhausted and seven years elap>ed 

 before the work was completed, \\hen the 

 schedule was published it was found to contain 

 many errors and inaccuracies, owing chiefly to 



