ADMINISTEATION OF PERU. 851 



the illiterate class being excluded, as well as those owning no property or paying 

 no taxes. Deputies and senators also must be of a certain age, 25 or 35 years, and 

 possess an independent income of 500 or 1,000 dollars. The Senate is composed 

 of provincial deputies, in the proportion of one for every 30,000 inhabitants or 

 fraction exceeding 15,000 ; the House of Hepresentatives is nominated by the 

 electoral colleges of the provinces into which the departments or main political 

 divisions are divided — tvvo members for each of the provinces where there are two 

 only, and one member more for every other two provinces. Thus, if the depart- 

 ment has two provinces, it will be represented by four members ; but if it has four, 

 by six only. 



The President, who possesses great power, especially if he happens to be a 

 general popular with the troops, is nominated for four years by the delegates of 

 both Houses. He is assisted by a cabinet of five ministers — council, justice, 

 foreign affairs, finance, and war — all nominated by himself and at his pleasure. 

 He also appoints and deposes the departmental prefects and the provincial sub- 

 prefects, and chooses the judges from six candidates presented by the Supreme 

 Court. 



A Vice-President replaces the President in case of illness or death, and 

 may himself be replaced by a second Vice-President appointed by election. The 

 electoral colleges choose the municipal councillors and the deputies of the provin- 

 cial assemblies. Catholicism is the state religion, and although other cults are 

 tolerated they cannot be exercised publicly. 



The yearly budget is only one -fourth of what it was before the Chilian 

 war, when it still enjoyed the sale of guano and the nitrates. The taxes, nearly 

 all of an indirect character, comprise in the first place the customs, and then the 

 sale of what guano remains, and further the profits of the postal, telegraph 

 and railway services, the charges on the sale of property and legacies, patents, 

 stamps and powder. 



The public foreign debt, contracted in England in 1870 and 1872, originally 

 represented a sum of £31,580,000 ; on which, however, no interest has been paid 

 since 1876, so that in 1889 the whole of the liabilities were stated to be about 

 £40,000,000, of which nearly half was represented by an enormously depreciated 

 paper currency. Before the withdrawal of this paper, the sole, or dollar, nominally 

 worth 4s , had fallen to 2id. In virtue of a convention concluded with her 

 English creditors, the so-called " Grace- Donoughmore " contract, finally ratified in 

 1890, Peru is relieved of all responsibility for the 1870 and 1872 debts, ceding 

 to the bondholders in return all the state railways, guano-beds, mines and 

 unoccupied lands for a period of sixty -six years. The creditors undertake on 

 their part to complete and extend the existing railways, thus, so to say, taking 

 the place of the Government so far as regards all useful and profitable public 

 works, and leaving to the state the administrative functions and the pomp of 

 office. In modern times this is the most signal instance of state control trans- 

 ferred to capital and enterprise. 



The army, which has contributed so much to increase the public burdens, 



