CORRESPONDENCE. No. 52.] ARGENTINE REPUBLIC. No. 1. Mr. Hanna to Mr. Bayard. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Buenos Ayres, October 14, 1886. (Received November 26.) SIR: On the 12th instant, the executive term of Julio A. Roca closed, and Michael Juarez Celman, his successor, was duly installed President of the Argentine Republic for the ensuing six years. The ceremonies were imposing and full of interest. The great personal popularity of General Roca, who has given this Republic its first six years of unbroken peace, his wise and efficient plans for the development of his country, encouragement of immigration, construction of railroads, establishment of a vast system of public schools, modeled after our own, under the direction of a number of thoroughly-trained normal school teachers, brought at large expense from the United States, and his new system for the dislodgment of Indian tribes from the ter ritories by the encouragement of strong colonies to take their place, and the absorption of the Indians themselves in the industries of the country and its military service, were made the occasion for a succession of civic and military processions, festive entertainments, and laudatory speeches, participated in by representative citizens gathered from all parts of the country. General Roca has unquestionably set this Government forward far in advance of its ordinary progress under the old régime. The popular opinion seems to be the administration of President Juarez will, in a large degree, be a continuation of the enlightened views and methods of his predecessor. The inaugural address of President Juarez, and that of General Roca at the surrender of the presidential office, are given herewith in inclosures 1 and 2. The new cabinet is as follows: Interior, Dr. Wilde; foreign affairs, Dr. Quirno Costa; finance, Dr. Pacheco; education, Dr. Passe; war and navy, General Racedo. Popular sentiment very gen. erally sustains the President in the wisdom of his selection of the distinguished gentlemen so soon to be his constitutional advisers. I have, etc., 9256 FR 87-1 BAYLESS W. HANNA. 1 [Inclosure 1 in No. 52-Translation.] Inaugural address of President Juarez. GENTLEMEN, SENATORS, AND DEPUTIES: You are the witnesses of the oath which with tranquil and sincere conscience I have just taken. To act with loyalty and patriotism, to obey and exact obedience in matters of constitutional duty, are obligations of no slight significance. Happily loyalty, patriotism, and sentiments favorable to the observance of law are not the exclusive virtues of those in high places. Pardon me if I venture to express the hope the time may come when, before you as witnesses of my conduct and the whole country as judges of my acts, I shall be able to say, truthfully, I have been faithful to my obligations, I have guarded honestly the exalted trust committed to my charge, I have religiously respected the laws myself and caused them to be respected by others, and have secured to every citizen the free exercise of all his rights and liberties. Such results are at least my most earnest hope. The party which invited me to become its candidate for the high office, whose duties I am now about to enter upon, well knows I did not seek the honor, but rather avoided it, being conscious of the responsibilities incident to the station, and that I am doubtful of my ability to perform its duties. But having been elected legally and in honor, the ardor of the struggle having been softened and local antagonisms replaced by the elevated sentiment of nationality, I may now, relying upon the good will of my fellow-citizens, make the promises contained in this document, with the sincerity of one firm in his intentions to maintain himself within the law, with no other ambition than to secure the happiness of his country. The Argentine nation already occupies a high level in self-government through the nature of its institutions, and feels daily the result of the common effort, which one man alone can neither compel nor restrain. The Argentine people, like its great models, acts for itself, and does not tolerate mentors, self-consecrated to the task of marking out its political course. Modern societies which base their political system upon the free and conscientious vote of the people, have little need of extraordinary qualities in their magistrates, it being sufficient for their moral and material development that the laws should be respected equally by those who govern and those who are governed. The solidity of our institutions has ceased to be a problem among us; it is an indestructible fact, guarantied by the great benefits and fertile progress attained, and it may be added with strict truth that there is no authority within the nation which can make itself paramount to the law, nor is there a single citizen or inhabitant excluded from its protection. I make, then, mine the programme, which my illustrious predecessor compressed into the formula of" peace and administration," because it expresses the supreme aspirations of all true Argentines, and explains the prodigious transformation already accomplished in the economic life of our country. Consequent upon this declaration, I shall devote special attention to the financial situation of the nation, and seek to solve its difficult problem. The Republic is undergoing rapid transformation in the matter of labor and production, It hasceased to be exclusively pastoral, and is becoming agricultural, producing, on a large scale, sugar-cane, the vine, and the cereals. These industries have been protected under our constitution, imitating the example of civilized nations, and it would be just to extend similar protection to other new industries, avoiding exaggeration and the system of prohibitory duties. The country requires prompt and efficacious means for developing its internal commerce, which my government will seek to provide by constructing roads and railways, by removing obstacles to navigation, by improving our river communication, by forming ports and quays, and by adopting measures tending to put into Argentine hands the coasting trade, now almost entirely foreign. I shall continue to follow the tradition of preceding governments by fulfilling honorably the obligations of the treasury at home and abroad, which can be done without effort or sacrifice by dealing economically with our resources. With this view I intend to restrain the use of foreign credit for constructing new railways, as the national guaranties ought to be sufficient, when it is indispensable (sic), and the internal credit ought to suffice for public works of other kinds. The unification of the internal and foreign debt is an absolute necessity for the credit of the state. Such unification will also effect a saving and facilitate the service of the debt. I shall devote myself, relying upon your assistance, to the suppression of the evils arising from a forced currency. I consider that the state banks of the province of Buenos Ayres can not exist in the capital of the Republic without injury to the nation, by preventing it from controlling its finances and directing the money market, and I suggest that a solution of the question should be sought, which, without injuring any legitimate interests, will conciliate the great duties of the nation. The promotion of education is an unavoidable necessity in a democratic government. The Argentine Republic has made great progress in this respect, and I shall endeavor to preserve the conquests obtained and to extend the benefit of education to the inhabitants generally, and thus to dissipate the clouds in which are formed or ger minated the seeds of anarchy and retrogression, and to lead the people to their high destinies and to make them know and love the institutions of their country. It will be my constant care to prevent politics or other hindering motive from disturbing our educational establishments in their fruitful mission. I regard it as a duty of government to find means for increasing immigration into this country, and for this purpose we must offer to the foreigners who tread our soil the guaranties of a liberal education and a good administration of justice. We must have fundamental codes and an organization of federal justice which will give to the future inhabitants of our soil absolute security of belief, property, and life. Our international relations shall be maintained and cultivated with the elevated views and the spirit of fraternity and justice observed by my predecessors. The citizen who to-day descends from power inaugurated his prosperous period of government under the auspices of one of the most transcendental legislative acts in the development of our constitutional life, the federalization of the capital, the basis and guaranty of the national unity demanded by the whole Republic. The new period to-day initiated will also have its historical point of departure in the catalogue of our greatest conquests. For the first time in our history, so full of painful experiences, the command is transferred in complete peace at home and abroad; for the first time the parties to the strife have remembered that free peoples admit discussion and the vote as the only legal source of preponderance; for the first time the chosen of the majority can eliminate with pleasure and profound satisfaction from his inaugural address that compulsory chapter in which my illustrious predecessors deplored the horrors of anarchy and rebellion, and can replace the just complaint with the assurances that peace is a fact in the Republic and that political struggles, energetic and violent as they may be, in the ordinary evolution of our constitutional life, will always be maintained as now within the limits of legality. [Inclosure 2 in No. 52.-Translation.] Farewell address of ex-President Roca. Mr. PRESIDENT: I deliver to you the supreme command of the Republic in a prosperous and flourishing condition, without uncertainties or doubts, without internal fears or foreign suspicions, and without having had once in my six years of government to trust the fate of the country to the hazzard of battle. This period of peace has enabled us to strengthen the principle of authority, to arrange favorably our boundary questions with Chili, Brazil, and Bolivia, to rescue the country from financial chaos and endow it with powerful institutions of credit, to mark out and organize new federal territories in the vast region dominated by native tribes, to multiply telegraphs, extend railways, and undertake all kinds of public works for improving the provinces, to double immigration and international commerce, and to raise the general revenue from twenty-one to fifty millions; to give a powerful impulse to public education, to keep the army and navy faithful to their flag, and above all to maintain intact, in all conflicts and difficulties, the imperium, the sovereignty of the nation. In a word, sir, I transmit the power to you, with the Republic richer, stronger, more vast, with more credit and with more love for stability and with more serene and promising prospects than when I received it from my illustrious predecessor, having to pass with grief, in order to arrive at the elevated seat which you are about to occupy under better auspices, over a field of death yet warm with the blood of hundreds of Argentines. If I have committed faults, injustice, or errors, I trust they will be judged with benignity by my fellow citizens, because I have had in all my actions no other motive than the good of the country and the glory and luster of its name. The functions of the executive's national power in a new country with complicated institutions and having to contend against the want of habits of liberty and republican education, are diffienlt and troublesome. I pray, therefore, that the Divine Providence may give you energy to overcome them and may enlighten all your decisions. Citizen Miguel Juarez Celman, Constitutional President of the Republic, receive the symbolical sash and staff which impose so many responsibilities, and with them the expression of my most profound respect and obedience to the authority with which you are thus invested. No. 58.] No. 2. Mr. Hanna to Mr. Bayard. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Buenos Ayres, December 3, 1886. (Received January 17, 1887.) SIR: Your cable message of the 30th ultimo, in which you instruct me to "report particulars of cholera in the Argentine Republic," was duly received. I have had some doubts whether or not you desired me to make such report by wire, but as the situation is not alarming at present, send you the following report through the mails, with tho assurance that if any serious emergency suddenly arises I will communicate it by cable. There is no room for doubts as to the existence of Asiatic cholera here. It made its first appearance about five weeks ago, and was imported by the Italian ship Perseo plying between Genoa and Buenos Ayres. * The testimony of passengers shows conclusively there was nearly a score of burials at sea of those who died of cholera on the voyage. * * # The Argentine Government instituted prompt investigation of the matter, and turned its entire care to its arrest and confinement within its present limits. Dr. Wilde, the minister of the interior, and as such prime minister of the Government, from whose department the national board of health derives all its powers and efficiency, is himself a physician of much distinction, and has labored with heroic devotion in the employment of every agency tending to the rapid and complete accomplishment of his sanitary measures. He has at his disposal money, physicians, and police powers almost without limit, and is employing them all with great spirit and ability. The exercise of sanitary measures has been so prompt and efficient, and the use of disinfectants and enforced cleanliness so widespread and rational, we venture to hope the disease will disappear before as suming an epidemical character. The people generally fully sympathize with the good intentions of the Government, and instead of interposing hinderances in the way of its sanitary plans help them on in every possible way. For the month of November, just closed, the official reports of the cholera hospital in Buenos Ayres show there were 200 patients entered; 93 deaths, 34 cured, with 73 still under treatment. Remembering the population of Buenos Ayres is fully 400,000, you will agree the showing thus far is not discouraging. And with the exercise of a little scrutiny even this exhibit may be much relieved of alarm, for of the 200 patients above enumerated, 130 were from the male and female lunatic asylums and 12 from the prisons, where people are greatly huddled together and hygienic conditions anything but favorable. This then leaves but 58 cases outside for an entire month. The greater part of the cases have originated in the "Boca," where the infected ship Perseo landed, which is a scooped out place, so deepened below the level of the River Plate that ships may enter and discharge. It is therefore, necessarily, a vast receptacle of filth, and there being no current to carry out its accumulations into the river beyond the sluggish action of the tide, it remains there a perpetual cess-pool. The Government, however, is already busy at work there with an immense force, devising means to clear its waters by the use of powerful pumps and dredges. The disease is most fatal at Rosario, a city of much commercial importance on the Paraná River, 200 miles away, where the most of the Perseo's passengers and cargo were discharged. The reports from that locality are truly distressing. In a population of about 50,000 souls they are now having from 35 to 50 deaths per day. In their cholera hospital alone there were over 200 patients in November, of which more than one-half died; but there the disease has invaded the homes of the best and most prudent families of the city. Cordoba and other inland cities are also becoming infected. The result of all this is, we are nearly cut off entirely from the commercial world. Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, the most of the European ports are quarantined against us, which fact has greatly disturbed the movement of the mails, and almost entirely suspended business. We have recently had some very cool weather, which has been favorable to us. Nineteen years ago yesterday the first case of the great cholera epidemic of 1867-'68 was reported. Then the plague was mainly confined to the city and neighboring county of Buenos Ayres. It was very destructive, and did not die out until near the close of March, on the advent of winter. Of course we are still in a state of anxious suspense, for if the hygienic expedients now in a rapid course of development do not eradicate the dreaded microbes of the plague, the hot season already upon us and to endure yet so long may plunge us into very serious disaster. Business is virtually suspended in Buenos Ayres, and vast numbers of people have gone out into the country. I have, etc., No. 3. BAYLESS W. HANNA, No. 61.] Mr. Hanna to Mr. Bayard. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Buenos Ayres, December 16, 1886. (Received January 25, 1887.) SIR Referring to my No. 58, under date of the 3d instant, I may add the cholera is on a steady increase here, and that it has assumed more deadly features. Thirty-six new cases were reported to the board of public assistance of Buenos Ayres yesterday, more than half of which died in a very few hours. The worst of all lies in the fact of its rapid spread throughout the outside provinces. This dreadful disease overleaps the prudence of quarantine, and breaks down every line of military cordon. It is still raging fiercely at Rosario, and has recently broken out at Cordoba, Tucuman, Laraté, Bahia Blanca, and Azul, and, worse than that, has gained a foothold on the island of Martin Garcia, where 5,000 terrified immigrants are detained in quarantine, without sufficient food or shelter. We have great fears of appalling results there. Two persons connected with this legation showed symptoms of attack last night, but were almost instantly relieved by the administration of chlorodine. * In cases of death the bodies not cremated are sent to the general burying ground, usually wrapped in sheets saturated with bichloride of mercury, in coffins filled with lime. I have, etc., BAYLESS W. HANNA. |