A copy and translation of the message of the President is inclosed, and
to it I invite the careful attention of the Department. Instead of the
usual comfortable generalities President Morales frankly exposes the
real situation of the Republic and points out specific reforms.
[Inclosure.—Translation.]
[Message which Carlos F. Morales
L., constitutional President of the Republic, addressed to the
National Congress February 27, 1905.]
foreign relations.
It has been an arudous labor—that of the Dominican foreign office—in
what refers to the solution of the many problems which have
completely absorbed the attention of this Department. It can be said
that it has been a continual struggle, undertaken with the patriotic
purpose of freeing the Republic from grave international
complications by defending energetically, though discreetly, its
interests and endeavoring to maintain relations of the closest
cordiality with all foreign nations.
The arbitral award in the case of the Dominican Republic with the
Improvement Company and its associates required our government to
make well-founded protests before the Washington foreign office. The
government over which I preside thought that the arbiters had not
kept within the bounds of the document giving them authority, and
since their capacity was fundamentally derived from the document,
when the power conferred was exceeded, the decision fell into one of
those exceptional cases which, in matters of arbitration are
provided for by international law. It took effective measures in
regard to this, and while its negotiations for this purpose were
proceeding the convention of January 20 last was concluded, which
was amplified by the additional act of the 7th of the current month.
This convention and the said additional act are the immediate
consequence, on one side, of the administrative errors committed by
former administrations, and of the urgent necessity of attending to
the peremptory complaints made by foreign creditors.
The moment has come to declare solemnly to you, honorable
representatives of the people, and in this august place before the
face of the country, that I am and will be under all circumstances
the most jealous guardian of the national independence, and that
there can be nothing which will make me vacillate in the least when
the question is one of the territorial integrity or the political
autonomy of the Republic.
The convention is a work of necessity and the method of coming to an
agreement which will put it within the power of the country to
resolve the problem of its debt.
In submitting it to your high approbation I am confident that your
patriotism, going to the bottom of the mountain of events which have
brought the Republic to its present pass, will take its inspiration
in the reality of our surrounding circumstances.
Only that patriotism is fecund which shows itself in deeds of
practical usefulness, and not that which, under pretense of
flattering the populace, precipitates the Republic into grave and
unavoidable conflicts. Civic virtue does not consist in provoking
events, but in rectifying the past by force of virtue, of
moderation, and of persistent dedication toward making our
nationality inviolable by the prestige of its credit and by the
development of its civilization and culture.
I repeat it to you, citizen deputies, in this grave and solemn hour
of the Republic, I will be at my post maintaining unblemished the
national honor.
The Republic of the United States of America and that of Cuba have
raised their respective representatives, the former to the rank of
minister resident and the latter to chargé d’affaires, and this
shows their desire of drawing closer each day the existing bands of
mutual cordiality between us and them.
[Page 397]
It is an earnest ambition of the Executive to open to our educated
young men the diplomatic and consular careers, in order that the
country by means of a worthy representation abroad may consolidate
the relations that bind us to friendly nations, and, thanks to the
expansion of ideas, make our nationality really known in all the
organs of its internal life.
Desirous as it is of always preserving the closest harmony between
the secular power and the Holy See, the government has received with
profound pleasure the selection of Monseigneur Nouel, a man full of
learning and virtues, as coadjutor of the most worthy archbishop of
Santo Domingo, the learned prelate Monseigneur de Moriño, who has
known how to maintain with the splendor of the faith the venerable
religious belief of the Dominican people.
