64 



Doc. No. 75. 



from the heavy burden of taxation, both upon personal and real property. 

 It should not create much wonder that this new feature of political econo- 

 my, brought to light, as it has been, by the comprehensive spirit of 

 modern democracy, the influences of which have not yet been extended 

 to our soil, has never to this day been understood, much less cultivated, 

 in Central America ; a country but recently emancipated, and stili in its 

 infancy in regard to civilization. Even France, an ancient nation, not- 

 withstanding her boasted intelligence and refinement, has but lately ven- 

 tured upon one small experiment, urged, as it were, by the example of 

 Great Britain and the United States. 



When fortune suggests an undertaking in which profit and the public 

 good are simultaneously combined, the money which is borrowed to de- 

 fray the expenses attending it is like grain planted in the soil, which, 

 being carefully cultivated, is reproduced in multiplied quantities. Im- 

 provident governments exhaust themselves in devising systems the most 

 complicated and ridiculous, and not unfrequently unjust^ in order to 

 meet exigencies which are often the elfect of fictitious wants or mal-ad- 

 ministration. But those governments whose affairs are administered by 

 men of real capacity, are generally foutid aiming at legislative perfection, 

 and adopting those simple and clear rules of policy which the head of a 

 family would follow in the management of his domestic concerns: as 

 much for the purpose of supplying his immediate wants, or of husband- 

 ing his means, if he possess any, or of acquiring a fortune by his own 

 efforts; for governments are nothing but the heads of a great family, 

 which is the people. Their obligation is to provide for the wants of this 

 great family, and to take care of their interests. The system of loans 

 constitutes the only honest mode by which those who have nothing may 

 become rich, unless fortune comes to them either by inheritance or by 

 voluntary donation — a thing which does not happen every day. A poor 

 but honorable man borrows the capital of another at a premium; he in- 

 vests it in some lucrative business, avails himself of the profits, and finally 

 returns it to the lender with the stipulated interest. This is the same 

 principle which, in their hour of poverty, the governments of the States 

 of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio adopted, in order to procure 

 funds for the construction of canals and railways; it is to the workings 

 of this principle, so natural in itself, so ingenious, and so superior to the 

 policy of other governments, that the people of those States are indebted 

 for the prosperity which they enjoy at present, and the flourishing and 

 almost unparalleled condition in which we find their public revenues. 



The government of Central America is placed precisely in the same 

 condition as the owner of a rich tract of land, who, being without the 

 means to procure labor, and too indolent to pursue the course best 

 calculated to obtain it, passes days and years in grieving over his dis- 

 tresses, without one thought of self condemnation for his want of energy 

 and enterprise. The territory of Nicaragua, endowed as it has been by 

 nature with so many facilities for the construction of a canal, is the rich 

 inheritance assigned by the Supreme Being to the people of Central 

 America, with a view that they would convert it by labor into a source of 

 wealth, and through it acquire the very first rank in the scale of com- 

 mercial importance among the nations on this continent; and yet fifteen 

 years have elapsed since this valuable inheritance came into our possession, 

 and we are still waiting for some enterprising foreigner, or the govern- 



