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the movement of wealth. Friendship, trade, wealth, citizenship, are the elements preventive of those chimerical dangers which would have disastrously impeded the development of the nations of America. And did we need . tranquilizing examples for our methods, once more would we find them in the nation which kindly extends us hospitality. Immigration was to her an element of greatness, and naturalization a strong aid to valuable accessions. We proceed with certain caution, we invite the immigrant retaining his own nationality, and, without compelling him to change his legal condition by restrictive acts, we await a citizenship worked out by the natural laws of generation. The assimilated mass is less compact, but the ties of the soil are not less binding, nor is the sentiment of nationality less strong; it is thus we maintain the cohesion of our people, without local discord, without selfish rivalries, and without other ambitions than those born of devotion to their independence and their sovereignty, generous ideals which refute the statements of incredulity, and protest against unconsidered predictions, more resembling anathemas than prophecies.

The Delegation in whose name I have the honor to speak has studied the economic questions which it was invited to discuss, not without first having presented, in connection with its friends from Brazil, well matured resolutions which tend to preserve the peace of the continent, raising right above might, and mutual security above armed distrust, which to-day weakens the treasuries of Europe by maintaining perilous rivalries which we would fain not see in the family of American nations. The honorable Conference will do justice at least to the loyalty of the intent and to the sincerity with which we aspire to preventive methods under the auspices of fraternity and of peace.

Would to God we were able to resolve, under the sway of the same inspiration, the questions affecting the economic development of our Republics.

Unfortunately, honorable Delegates, our feeling in this case would color our decisions. Commerce is inspired by interest and maintained by profit; it ends where disinter

estedness begins, and lives uneasy in the light of affection. It is not enough, then, that we should greet each other as friends, and embrace as brothers, to deviate or to extend currents which it is not in our power to direct. We might have signed cordial and friendly agreements, sealed, I doubt not, by sincerity, but to be canceled in a not distant future by the operation of the very forces we would be endeavoring to govern by our acts.

No human convention will ever be able to control the intensity or direction of these currents, formed by production and interchange; nourished, as they are, by unconquerable selfishness, by persevering activities, by autonomic and domestic efforts. Production obeys the decrees of nature, as interchange is begotton of necessity, of advantage, and of profit. Whenever the State has attempted to swerve the natural trend of these forces, such action has generally resolved itself into a symptom of disturbance, and governments bound together to bring it about have not achieved any better success in their methods or results. Old as the original forms of trade, and primitive as the ancient barter, the laws of demand and supply will continue to govern between countries the interchange of their surplus, and if reforms and evolutions are to result, they will originate in the choice of commodities due to civilization and culture, which causes society to be exacting, producers more painstaking, and the soil doubly fertile and fruitful.

Tariff questions claim the attention in these days of Europe and America, and the nations of this continent would do well to consider carefully and studiously the problems agitating the other side of the Atlantic; not only because the very questions are there being discussed, but because Europe affords us a lesson that is at once empirical and scientific. Germany appears to be disposed to renounce her commercial treaties and the idea of a "Zollverien" formed of Central Europe, which would give rise to economic complications of uncertain solution, is attributed to her. France hesitates between the continuance or abrogation of her treaties which expire in '92, and independent of their important relation to the Treaty of Frank

fort, the Cabinet considers this problem of such transcendental gravity that at the present time it is soliciting the views of merchants and producers, submitting to their consideration the course to be followed. Is it advisable to abrogate the treaties? If so, by what system shall they be replaced? Shall the system which preceded the reform of 1860 be again resorted to? If autonomic tariffs be adopted how could the interests of the producer and of the manufacturing industry be reconciled?

These and other questions have been lately addressed to commercial centers; and at the same time that the ministry is engaged in obtaining the prevailing opinion, the House of Deputies has appointed a Committee on Customs consisting of fifty members, which must report upon so important a subject. It may be predicted, however, that the results of the ministerial investigation will be conflicting at least; where the voice and the vote of the producer of raw material has weight autonomic tariffs and heavy duties on imports will prevail; where the manufacturing interests make themselves heard, the decision will lean towards freedom of trade or reduction of tariffs, thus providing them free and cheap materials with which to work, and enable the article to withstand competition in and out of the home market. The interests of the producer move him in the direction of restrictive systems, those of the manufacturer towards freedom of trade; it is, therefore, difficult to protect one without prejudicing the other, and when it is decided to protect both, the knot is cut but not untied. The consumer is the one to bear the burden of double protection, and if it be easy to force him to submit and be resigned to the home market, he will defend himself and even rebel on foreign soil where free competition exists. I have not decided to express myself upon this historic struggle of the two schools; it appears to me, however, that victory is being successfully contended for by free trade, and that the producers of raw material will have to make strenuous efforts to justify the attack which would be made upon the manufacturing industry of France.

The nations of America should invest this problem with

the importance accorded it in Europe; it appears, however, that we march with greater rapidity. We bring instructions to discuss a "Zollverein," and it appears to me bold indeed that three meetings of the committee should suffice to propose measures which are in effect a third system between protection and free trade, a system which at the present time rouses Europe to its reconsideration with deliberation and study. This is not a charge against my friends and colleagues, but a justification of the laconism and caution with which I have expressed myself in the minority, replying to the point submitted to our consideration without advancing any opinions which to my mind were foreign to our mission.

It is a mystery to no one that the nations of America sustain and develop their trade by their relations with Europe. The economic phenomenon is explained naturally and without effort. Our wealth consists of the products of the soil, and if there be on the Continent a market which at the same time is a manufacturing one, it should deserve especial considerations, which I will have the satisfaction of bestowing. But it is logical, indispensable, inevitable that countries yielding natural products, or raw material, shall seek and obtain manufacturing markets, and especially those which receive them free. Between our countries trade is the exception; non-communication the rule. I except, of course, the interchange engendered by the geographical situation of bordering nations, and that which is nourished by articles which make themselves necessary because of the idiosyncrasies of the soil, or of incidents of the climate. Figure among these the cup of coffee which to the United States represents $74,000,000, and the spoonful of sugar which amounts to eighty-eight millions annually. Exceptional articles and exchanges should not serve as a basis to generalize commercial relations, nor to extend to all the Continent what is the case only in the minority of its States.

The reciprocal trade of our countries will develop slowly without conflict between the producing and the manufacturing market; that is precisely the interchange, with its own marked and distinctive features, between the Old and

the New World. It is born and lives of the union of natural resources with manufacturing industry, and everything tending to the linking of like-producing markets will be barren, if not pernicious. These considerations, which are so rudimentary in political economy that I might have almost refrained from uttering them, because of their familiarity, clearly prove that a continental compact would be unnecessary to at least the majority of the SpanishAmerican countries. To assure free trade between noninterchanging markets, would be Utopian luxury and an illustration of sterility. I am far from opposing free trade; I only combat the sumptuary declarations that would be as unfavorable as they would be profitless to the commerce of America.

Commercial statistics show that all the inter-continental trade is due to this one factor, namely, the manufacturing market of the North. But has that trade reached the degree of development which it has the right to expect? Does it satisfy the aspirations of the Continent, in so far as its desire to see its resources increased and transformed within its own borders is concerned? Figures answer in the negative.

The consumption of the nations of Latin-America represented in this Conference amounts to $560,000,000, but the United States share in those importations to the amount only of $52,000,000, not being 10 per cent. of our purchases from Europe. The relation of these figures to the trade of the United States reveal the poverty of the exchanges with greater clearness. Out of their total export trade, amounting to $740,000,000, Latin-America buys only $52,000,000; that is to say, 7 per cent of the total exports. Let us see now what the United States buys of us. Out of our exportations, which amount to $600,000,000, the United States take $120,000,000, including what they get from Hayti, but excluding all the rest of the Antilles. Buying $120,000,000 and selling only $52,000,000, leaves a difference of $68,000,000, which figures, in view of the theory of the balance of trade that considers all importations as a loss and all exportations as a gain, the United States would be right in looking upon as unfavor563A -8

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