session of Congress, he gave to the conferred on anybody the right to buy The constitution was framed upon the theory that sovereignty is not saleable. The people of the United States have conferred upon nobody the power to make such purchases in their behalf. We have acquired territory, either vacant or so sparsely settled that there was no people capable of governing it and no germ of a national life. We have also, in one recent case, acquired a territory where the original germ of national life had perished. But neither of these precedents applies to the Philippine archipelago with its THE RUBBER INDUSTRY OF PARA. The Amazon Well nigh the "only" industry of the great Amazon country is that of gathering rubber. The fact that the natives can earn more by gathering rubber than in any other industry, has led to the neglect of nearly all others. Recent consular reports give interesting information of the present methods of conducting the rubber industry- from the monopolizing of the lands by English and American corporations, to the marketing of the crude rubber in the trade centers of the world. It seems strange to hear that the natives of the vast Amazonian wilds have not the right to gather rubber on their own account, but the "business" man has already obtained his concessions from the Brazilian Government, by virtue of which all rubber-bearing trees in districts sufficiently near to a market to be profitable, belong to foreign corporations, who permit the natives to gather rubber, upon the payment of a certain per cent of the product. The report in question says: It was at one time imagined that the excellence of Para rubber was greatly due to the kind of fuel used in curing it. The palms that furnish the fuel were accordingly transplanted to Africa, with a view to making Para rubber there. The experiment, however, has not met with success. The reason these nuts are selected in Brazil is because they emit a continuous dense smoke, and are more portable than other fuel obtainable. However, when none of the palms named are accessible, bark and twigs are used as fuel. are electroplated, thus preventing their becoming rusty before they are marketed. The handles are made of wood and are carved or inlaid with brass. The native rubber collector's ax is a very small affair. It is required to chip a smooth surface on the bark, preparatory to attaching a cup to the tree. The handling of the ax requires great skill, in order not to injure the bark. A smooth surface is made, in order to prevent impurities from mixing with the sap. The cups are of clay or tin. The former are attached to the bark by means of a little clay. Their weight, however, makes them inconvenient to carry when the trees to be tapped are separated by long intervals; the collector then prefers to carry tin cups, which are much lighter than the others. They easily penetrate into the bark by means of their sharp edges, and hold to the tree without the use of clay. The use of the tin cup, however, is, to some extent, injurious to the tree. Part of the collector's outfit consists of a light gourd — large enough to carry the contents of from five hundred to seven hundred cups. A clay bowl is next required, in order to receive the contents of the gourd. It is of sufficient size to contain the product of several days' work before it is cured. The calabash tree provides calabashes, which are employed to ladle the milk from the clay bowl into the mold. A broad-bladed wooden paddle is used as a mold, and is made locally. This completes the outfit for the rubber collector. All these articles are made locally, with the exception of the knives. The axes and the tin cups are manufactured in the towns and villages of the Amazon region. The collector has to use his knife to cut his way through the undergrowth, and also to cut down a sapling occasionally, to bridge a rivulet. At times he is knee-deep in ooze or up to his waist in water. On arriving at a rubber tree, he chips away the rough parts of the bark, makes a more or less smooth surface, attaches a cup, and makes a small gash above for the sap to fall into the cup, and repeats this process in a line round the tree, until he has attached six or seven cups. Then he proceeds to the next tree and does the same. He continues this process until he has tapped from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty trees, which can be done in a day if they are not too far apart. On the following days the gashes in the trees are made a trifle lower down than the first ones. Some collectors tap the trees in the morning and return to collect the sap in the evening, whereas others tap in the evening and collect in the morning. An expert gathers seven pounds daily in the Lower Amazon; in the Upper Amazon three times this amount is collected. When the accumulation of rubber is sufficient—usually in three or four days - the collector lights a fire in the hut he has erected, places the funnel over a fire, pours a thin coat of milk over the paddle, and holds it over the smoke to coagulate. The process is repeated until a large cake has been formed. To release the paddle from the cake it is necessary to make a slit on one side. The paddle mold makes a cake of uniform and even shape, and is in general use in the State of Para. In other parts, a spit is placed on two upright forked sticks, and given a rotary motion. By this means the rubber is cured with greater ease. Paddlesmoked rubber is decidedly preferred, as it is drier and seemingly more carefully cured. Many attempts have been made to introduce improved curing apparatus. in this way, and I believe no method of Up to this writing, however, they have preventing it has been discovered. This not been received with popular favor, is another of the difficulties of the because the common method, although landed proprietor. One of the methods very primitive, possesses the advan- in practice is to lease the trees in lots tages of being simple and inexpensive. of seventy-five, one hundred and fifty, The process of curing rubber is ex- or two hundred, at a given sum per antremely injurious to the eyes. Many num, and to stipulate that the lessee cases of total blindness result therefrom. should sell the rubber to and purchase There are three grades of Para rub- all his supplies from the owner. The ber, viz., fine, medium and coarse. If lessee works his lot to the utmost, and rubber is not uniform and contains im- usually earns a handsome profit, after purities, it is classified as medium. The paying the rent; and, although the coarse quality, or "Sernamby," con- owner does not obtain the full value of sists of scraps that have not been cured. the lots rented, he makes up for it by charging commission on goods supplied, etc. Industrial Conditions. Insufficient labor is the most serious difficulty in the rubber industry. It would scarcely seem advisable to invest money in rubber estates, unless the owner first can see his way clear to obtain sufficient labor with which to collect the rubber. In reality, the genuine owner of the produce of the forest is the collector, not the land-owner. As a rule, the land-owner makes advances to the collectors for their outfit, food, etc., and in return receives the rubber collected by them. He sells the produce on the collector's account, retaining 20 per cent for himself, and continues making advances in such manner that the collector always remains in his debt, and consequently in his service. It frequently happens, however, that the collector takes the advance and fraudulently disposes of the rubber to any buyer who may be on hand. A great deal of leakage occurs The profits of the rubber industry would seem to be large, because the employer keeps 20 per cent and makes about the same on the goods supplied the employes; but it must be considered that out of one hundred employes whose outfit and traveling expenses have been advanced, at least seventy-five die, desert, or return to their homes on account of illness. The expense incurred for them is accordingly a dead loss, and when this is deducted from the total income, the profit is greatly reduced. The "aviador" is a person who advances supplies and capital to the rubber collector in exchange for rubber. The principal "aviador" resides at the chief centers, and finances a number of smaller "aviadores," who travel about in the rubber industries. The exporters of rubber are mostly agents of United States and British importers. They buy from the "aviadores" in the principal centers. INTEROCEANIC CANAL COMPLICATIONS It is indeed fortunate that Early Compli- relations with Great Britain cations. are at this time so agreeble, for few questions have been the occasion of more diplomatic wrangling between the United States and Great Britain than this interoceanic canal problem. As early as 1825, a New York company obtained concessions for the construction of a canal via the St. John River and Lake Nicaragua. This company did nothing, presumably because of a lack of financial support. Some twenty years later, Great Britain, recognizing the importance to that nation of the control of such a waterway between the two great oceans, entered into relations with the Chief or King of the Mosquito Indians, by which an alliance was formed and Great Britain effected the capture of the town of San Juan, which controlled the mouth of the San Juan River. Guatemala protested at this seizure of important territory by the English, and appealed to the United States. Great Britain, on the other hand, claimed that her occupation of the port of San Juan was in behalf of her ally, the King of the Mosquito Coast, who was at war with Guatemala at the time. The United States protested diplomatically, and President Zachary Taylor, in his message to Congress March 19, 1850 (only a few weeks previous to the death of the victor of Buena Vista), impressed the importance of the matter on that body. In order to checkmate England, President Taylor, through his charge d'affaires in Guatemala, had entered into a treaty with the latter State. This treaty was consummated prematurely by President Taylor's representative, and the concessions gained by the treaty were so great that it seemed a challenge to Great Britain, and therefore was partially disavowed. W President President Taylor said to Taylor's Congress in this message: Message. On the 12th day of November, 1847, Señor Buetrage, secretary of state and of the affairs of war and foreign relations and domestic administration of the Supreme Government of the State of Nicaragua, addressed a letter from the Government House at Leon to Mr. Buchanan, then Secretary of State of the United States, asking the friendly offices of this Government to prevent an attack upon the town of San Juan de Nicaragua, then contemplated by the British authorities as the allies of the Mosquito King. That letter, a translation of which is herewith sent, distinctly charges that — "The object of the British in taking this key of the continent is not to protect the small tribe of the Mosquitos, but to establish their own empire over the Atlantic extremity of the line by which a canal connecting the two oceans is most practicable, insuring to them the preponderance on the American continent, as well as their direct relations with Asia, the East Indies, and other important countries of the world." The President then recites the history of the subsequent proceedings, in all of which Great Britain had made no reply to the protests of Guatemala. He then says: "The British ships of war Alarm and Vixen arrived at San Juan de Nicaragua on the 8th day of February, 1848, and on the 12th of that month, the British forces, consisting of 260 officers and men, attacked and captured the post of Serapaqui, garrisoned, according to the British statements, by about 200 soldiers, after a sharp action of one hour and forty minutes." Relative to the treaty with Guatemala, President Taylor said: On the 3d day of June, 1848, Elijah Hise, being appointed charge d'affaires of the United States to Guatemala, received his instructions, a copy of which is herewith submitted. In these instructions the following passages occur: "The independence, as well as the interests, of the nations on this continent require that they should maintain the American system of policy entirely distinct from that which prevails in Europe. To suffer any interference on the part of the European Gov ernments with the domestic concerns of the American Republics, and to permit them to establish new colonies upon this continent, would be to jeopard their independence and to ruin their interests. These truths ought everywhere throughout this continent to be impressed on the public mind. But what can the United States do to resist such European interference whilst the SpanishAmerican Republics continue to weaken themselves by division and civil war, and deprive themselves of the ability of doing anything for their own protection? "This last significant inquiry seems plainly to intimate that the United States could do nothing to arrest British aggression while the Spanish-American Republics continue to weaken themselves by division and civil war, and deprive themselves of the ability of doing anything for their protection. On the 26th day of May, 1848, Mr. Hempstead represented, in a letter to the Department of State, that the Indians had applied to Her Majesty's superintendent at Belize for protection, and had desired him to take possession of the territory Ef When I came into office Unauthorized I found the British GovernTreaty. ment in possession of the port of San Juan, which it had taken by force of arms after we had taken possession of California, and while we were engaged in the negotiation of a treaty for the cession of it and that no official remonstrance had been made by this Government against the aggression nor any attempt to resist it. forts were then being made by certain private citizens of the United States to procure from the State of Nicaragua by contract the right to cut the proposed ship canal by way of the river San Juan and the lakes of Nicaragua and Managua to Realejo, on the Pacific Ocean. A company of American citizens entered into such a contract with the State of Nicaragua. Viewing the canal as a matter of great importance to the people of the United States, I resolved to adopt the policy of protecting the work and binding the Government of Nicaragua, through whose territory it would pass, also to protect it. The instructions to E. George Squier, appointed by me charge d'affaires to Guatemala on the second day of April, 1849, are herewith submitted, as fully indicating the views |