No. 106.
Mr. Wing to Mr. Fish.
Quito, Ecuador, September 25, 1871. (Received Nov. 16.)
Sir: Per this mail I have the honor to forward to the Department the report of the Honorable Señor José Javier Eguiguren, minister of finance to the Ecuadorian Congress.
It presents on the whole a very favorable statement of the material condition and promise of Ecuador. The description of the roads in progress of construction by our countrymen, and the custom receipts, augur well for the future.
The best wagon-roads in Spanish America exist to-day in interior Ecuador, and in these Andean ranges these roads really conduce more to the general good of the people, and the development of commerce and internal improvements, than the most costly rail-line that can be built among their rugged spurs.
Not the least interesting item in the report is that relative to the payments made during the past five years to the owners of manumitted slaves.
I also find an itemized statement of the debt due to American creditors, from which it will appear that this Government never for a moment presumed that the dividends carried interest.
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Within the last few weeks a large amount of American silver has been introduced, and its circulation will eventually become very general.
The recent withdrawal of the Colombian money from circulation, under an executive decree, has been the primal cause of the advent of the old American silver half-dollar, dime, and half-dime in considerable quantities. Of course they are rated as “hard” currency, as contradistinguished from the “-soft” or Ecuadorian currency proper, and command a handsome premium.
I also meet of late with the American eagle and half and quarter eagle quite frequently. These facts are suggestive, and serve in part to evince the tendency of the drift of feeling not only among the people, but also with the Government.
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I have, &c,