No. 340.
Mr. Langston to Mr.
Frelinghuysen.
Legation of
the United States,
Port-au-Prince,
Hayti, December 1, 1884.
(Received Dec. 24.)
No. 690.]
Sir: I have the honor to transmit a copy, with its
translation, of a decree passed by the National Assembly of Hayti, October
6, 1884, and published in the official section of the Moniteur on the 11th
of the same month, providing for the issue, upon the credit of the Republic,
of two millions of gourdes of paper money.
The two classes of bills, ones and twos, provided for in the decree are to
circulate on a par with the silver money of the country, and to be redeemed
in portions of six hundred thousand gourdes at the end of each year, three
fifths of the total proceeds of the fixed export duties upon coffee being
set apart for said purpose.
All the details connected with the issue of this currency are placed in the
hands and under the control of the secretary of state for finances, and
already he has made arrangements with regard thereto, in the organization of
a syndicate composed of twenty of the principal business men of this city
who have entered upon their duties; and among the first things which they
have done has been the ordering of the making and engraving of the bills of
the two millions of gourdes at a price estimated at $45,000 in the United
States.
I am, &c.,
[Page 477]
[Inclosure in No.
690.—Translation.]
salomon, president of hayti,
In view of articles 69, fourth paragraph, 167, third paragraph, of the
constitution:
Whereas the fiscal balance of the year 1884–’85 cannot be attained in
consequence of just and legal provisions which have diminished the
export duties upon coffee and restored to the public functionaries the
reserve operated upon them during the late civil troubles which agitated
the country.
Whereas, to meet urgent expenses required by such situation, it has
become necessary to mate a floating debt and often to employ special
resources appropriated to the payment of our external and interior
debts; and that it is necessary for the honor and credit of the Republic
to meet, in such measure as may be possible, the arrears of those
obligations:
Upon the proposition of the secretary of state of finances, and with the
advice of the council of secretaries of state, has proposed, and the
National Assembly has voted with urgency the following decree:
- Article 1. To meet the obligations
enumerated above, the Government is authorized to borrow upon
the credit of the Republic a sum of two millions of gourdes,
guaranteed by the total product of three-fifths of the fixed
duties of the exportation upon coffee, and which shall be
redeemed in equal portions of six hundred thousand gourdes at
the end of each year, the first of which shall commence to run
from the day of the definitive close of said operation.
- Art. 2. This loan shall be made by
the emission of like sum in bills of one and two gourdes, which
shall be current throughout the Republic and shall be received
as the equal of our silver money by all the public and private
cash offices.
- Art. 3. An ulterior order shall
determine the charges of making and emission, the division, the
number and the stamp of the different series of the bills, the
signatures with which they shall be clothed, the control to be
exercised upon the emission, the mode of the annual withdrawal
by means of drawing lots, as well as all the matters of detail
relative to the present decree, which shall be printed,
published, and executed at the diligence of the secretary of
state of the department of finances and of commerce.
Given at the palace of the National
Assembly, at Port-au-Prince, the 6th of October, 1884,
the eighty-first year of the
independence.
