Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress December 3, 1912

File No. 815.51/241.

The American Minister to the Secretary of State.

No. 161.]

American Legation,
Tegucigalpa, March 25, 1911.

Sir: Referring to my No. 126, of the 2nd ultimo,¹ I have the honor to enclose copy and translation of a “Manifesto of the National Congress to the Honduran People” signed by most of the deputies, dated February 14, 1911, containing the reasons for the action of the Congress on January 31 last in disapproving the United States-Honduras Convention signed in Washington on January 10, 1911.

This manifesto has not yet been published.

I have [etc.]

Fenton R. McCreery.

[Inclosure—Translation]

Manifesto of the National Congress to the Honduran People.

Hondurans:

In the face of events such as the present ones, which place the autonomy and the independence of the Fatherland in danger, the National Congress, through its regard for the authority with which you have honored it, believes it ought to make known to you the motives upon which it founded Decree No. 20 of January 31st last when it disapproved the Convention submitted for its consideration by the Executive Power, and which was signed in Washington on the 10th of the same month by Señor Juan E. Paredes, Plenipotentiary of Honduras, and Mr. Philander C. Knox, Plenipotentiary of the United States of America.

This Convention which treats of a loan which it is sought to negotiate in the name of Honduras, is a matter of such moment that the Congress opines that it should be understood by the whole country and that all Hondurans should be called upon who are capable of rendering an opinion on a matter which not only is to bind them during the remainder of their days, but also their children and their children’s children. As the Convention was not given out by the press, upon its submission for the ratification of the sovereign representatives of the people, the latter were placed in the necessity of studying it with clue care in order to accept or reject it freely; but as it was presented to them for consideration in secret session and with the intimation that an early decision was urgent, there remained neither opportunity nor time for a conscientious study. Under these circumstances Congress, desiring to proceed with the greatest zeal and prudence—for its duty was to safeguard the interests entrusted to it by the people as well as the sacred trust bequeathed us by our forefathers and which is symbolized in the words Independence, Liberty, Fatherland—determined not to act immediately concerning the Convention and agreed to name a special committee to report thereon, composed of Deputies Licenciados Leandro Valladares, Pedro A. Medal, Romulo E. Durón, Timoteo Miralda, Francisco Escobar, Emilio Mazier; Deputies Octavio Ugarte, José Manuel Zelaya, Dr. Eusebio Toledo; Licenciado José Maria Galves, Licenciado Nestor Colindres Zúñiga and Ines Navarro.

Notwithstanding the fact that this committee was a special one with large membership, the magnitude of the matter and the desire for the most accurate solution impelled the Congress to cause to be heard the most noted jurisconsults as well as other distinguished persons who, though not professional men, could, because of their well-known eminence in the country and their upright judgment, also aid in the best solution with their opinions. It was provided, therefore, that the following lawyers should be heard: Policarpo Bonilla, Angel Ugarte, Pedro J. Bustillo, Rafael Alvarado Manzano, Saturinino Medal, Miguel Oquelí Bustillo, Dionisio Gutiérrez, Alberto A. Rodríguez, Antonio R. Vallejo, Cesar Bonilla, Jerónimo Zelaya, Frederico G. Uclés, Crescendo Gomez, Esteban Guardipla and Manuel A. Reina, and Generals Máximo B. Rosales and Jose Maria Reina. By consulting the opinions of such varied and intelligent men, Congress sought to enlighten its own opinion with what might be called the national conscience as interpreted by its most eminent and distinguished organs, since it would be composed of individuals of all political creeds and varied social significance.

These measures having been taken, the session was adjourned, and the Deputies having been invited to enter the reception room of the President of the Republic, they were given the opportunity to listen to observations made by this high functionary, and as a result thereof, they returned to the Sessions Hall, declared a continued and secret session, and announced the urgency of decision—a single discussion and during that session—of the matter in question; and, after lengthy consideration, the Convention was disapproved by 32 votes to 4. The above is set forth more fully in the proceedings of the session of January 31, which is herewith attached, together with those of the sessions of January 21, 23 and 24 since they contain data in connection with the negotiations relative to the loan. The decree of disapproval reads as follows:

Decree No. 20. The National Congress, in view of the Convention signed in the city of Washington on the tenth of this month by Señor don Juan E. Paredes as Plenipotentiary of Honduras and Mr. Philander C. Knox as Plenipotentiary of the United States of America, and in the exercise of the power conferred upon it by Article 90, number 22, of the Political Constitution of the State, decrees:

Sole Article. That the Convention under consideration be disapproved.

Given in Tegucigalpa, in the Sessions Hall, on the thirty-first day of January, one thousand nine hundred and eleven.

Francisco Escobar,
President.

Ramon Fiallos, Secretary.

Leandro Valladares, Secretary.

The reasons for this decree are at the disposal of all.

In accordance with Articles 2 and 4 of the Political Constitution, Honduras is a free, sovereign and independent nation; all public power emanates from the people; the functionaries of the State have no other powers than those expressly given them by law; and any act of theirs not so given is void.

In accordance with Article 21 of the Constitution, one of the rights of the citizen is to aspire to public office.

In accordance with Article 90, numbers 8, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 and 29, of the Constitution the Legislative Power makes provision for the security and defense of the Republic; approves, modifies or disapproves treaties celebrated with other nations; regulates land and maritime commerce; approves or disapproves the records of public expenditurs; fixes the annual Budget of Expenses, taking as a basis the probable receipts; imposes taxes; regulates the payment of the national debt; orders the alienation of national property or its employment for public uses; and decrees loans.

In accordance with Article 92 of the Constitution, the powers of the Legislative Power are non-transferable.

In accordance with Article 108, numbers 2, 3, 4, and 16, of the Constitution, the Executive Power defends the independence and the honor of the nation and the integrity of its territory; executes the laws, and causes them to be observed, issuing, to that end, without altering the spirit thereof, the official decrees and orders; nominates the Secretaries and the Subsecretaries of State and the other employees of the Executive Department, in conformity with the law; causes the revenue of the State to be collected; and regulates its investment in accordance with the law.

In accordance with Article 109 of the same, the acts of the Executive Power which are not despatched through the appropriate Ministry shall not be fulfilled, and the President and the Minister shall be wholly responsible for acts committed in violation of the Constitution and the laws.

And in accordance with Articles 137, 138, 139 and 140 of the Constitution, all expenditures made without the sanction of law are illegal; the product of the duties, imposts and taxes form part of the national Treasury; the Executive Power shall not be able to celebrate important contracts which may compromise the Public Treasury without previously publishing, the proposal in the official publication and receiving, public bids; and to conduct the administration of the National Treasury there shall be an Auditor General or a Superior Board of Accounts.

Now, by the Paredes-Knox Convention, the text of which is attached, the sovereignty and the independence of Honduras is assailed: 1. Because, instead of Honduran citizens nominated by the Executive Power or by Congress, as the case may be, without foreign intervention, to take charge of the customs, there will be named by our Government for such purpose, a Collector General under the protection of the Government of the United States, from a list of names which may be Honduran citizens or not, such list to be presented to the Government by the Fiscal Agent for the loan, and to be approved by the President of the United States. 2. Because, although the list were made up of Honduran citizens alone with the right of holding public office as prescribed by the law, the appointment would be void at the outset because of the obligation to make it from a list of persons presented to our Government by a foreign Government, a provision which, under the Constitution, has no place in our administrative regime; 3. Because the Fiscal Agent for the loan, concerning whose appointment nothing is said, does not fill an office of constitutional or legislative creation, for our Constitution creates the office of Auditor General or the Superior Board of Accounts to supervise everything pertaining to the public funds, and to accept the foreign Fiscal Agent is to disregard the provisions of our fundamental law; 4. Because, with the funds of the loan and those of the customs held by functionaries named in violation of the Constitution, the latter, who in reality would not be subject to the Government of Honduras, but to that of the United States, would place in danger the security and defense of the Fatherland, which depends not only on its citizens and its arms but also on its resources. Nothing would be gained by requesting a complete detailed report every year or whenever the Government of Honduras might wish it, if this Government lacked the power to act solely and exclusively in the administration of the funds and in the selection of the persons who administer them; and besides the illegality of a Fiscal Agent, concerning whose appointment nothing is known, and of a Collector of Customs appointed in the manner indicated by the Convention, the fact exists that the clauses referring thereto constitute an offense to Hondurans, by adjudging them morally and intellectually incapable of administering their revenues, of honoring their obligations and of respecting their laws; 5. Because, with Congress possessing the right to regulate land and maritime commerce, it can increase or diminish the import and export duties and those pertaining thereto, as it notes that the one action or the other favors the increase of Treasury receipts, and thereby it would the more quickly fulfill its obligations, whereas by binding itself not to alter its tariff during the existence of the loan, without consulting or coming to an agreement with the United States, it could not obtain these advantages, since by renouncing a constitutional prerogative, its future would not be contingent upon its convenience or its will, and the loan instead of being liquidated in a shorter time, would be subject to the time imposed by the conditions of the Convention; 6. Because the payment of the national debt ought to be adjusted by Congress without foreign intervention, and having at its disposal for that purpose the national wealth and with the power to indicate how it shall be employed for public uses, it has at hand sufficient means to realize this object, by offering them as a guaranty for the obligations contracted, without the necessity of the intervention of any government between Honduras and the lender to effect an agreement and ensure its fulfillment, just as El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Chile and other countries have done; 7. Because Congress fixes, approves or disapproves annually the public expenditures, and these should not, either in their entirety nor in part, be indicated by foreign administrators, but should be determined by the Congress in the exercise of its attributes and in conformity with the laws; 8. Because the protection offered by the Convention to the Collector General of Customs who is appointed in accordance therewith, and which will be such as is deemed necessary by the Government of the United States, constitutes a menace, for Honduras being a weak country and the customs receipts managed by an employee of the American Government, every time that this agent clashes with the Honduran authorities protection would be afforded him and not the latter; and by suggesting this protection the regularity and the seriousness of the acts of the Government of Honduras are discredited and it is regarded with hostility as if it were a question not of a country which has lived and aspires to live honorably, but of an uncivilized country against which it is necessary to take precautions, an attitude which is not substantiated by the existence of the record of the loans of 1867, 1869 and 1870, for it is known that this account constitutes in its greater part a scandalous fraud of which Honduras was the victim, in view of which the British Parliament, in 1875, refused to authorize the British Government to uphold the creditors in a coercive claim; and 9. Because the powers of the Legislative Power being nontransferable, the latter cannot consent that the Executive Power should put into practice a Convention which annuls said powers, which violates the Constitution and which transforms Honduras from a free country into an administrative dependency of the United States.

Turning to another side of the question, Congress discovers that the credit, trustworthiness and responsibility of the makers of the loan are not enumerated and that, furthermore, it is not shown that our Administration has calculated what and how great are the benefits accruing to it by contracting a loan destined for the various ends here enumerated: foreign debt, internal debt and the adjustment and settlement of non-liquidated credits. In a certain given case the loan might be justified for one or several of these purposes or ends but not for all. And in this connection, the terms of the Convention declare the union and indivisibility of the various aspects of the economic credit of Honduras.

Our Administration cannot, at the present time, gauge the opportuneness of contracting a loan and of contracting it exclusively with American lenders, thus refusing to avail themselves of competition or unforeseen opportunities offered in the economic world by other than American capital.

But it was not so much economic considerations as those of constitutional character, which are and ought to be in a republican country those of the highest category, that decided the Congress to disapprove the Convention. The Legislative Power of Honduras has from no point of view power to compromise or impair the sovereignty of the nation: it possesses no further powers than those enumerated in the Constitution, and among them does not appear, nor can appear, one of such transcendent moment.

Hondurans:

You now know what the decision of Congress was. We disapproved the Paredes-Knox Convention, because we could not with a clear conscience approve it when it involved such a grave and important matter as that of granting intervention in our internal affairs to interests not accepted nor even foreseen by our Political Constitution. Furthermore, an approval involved also that of another matter of as great importance as the loan and which would of necessity have compromised not only the present but also the future of the country, a thing which could not be done without having at hand all the records in the case and as much data as could aid in ascertaining up to what point the Treasury of Honduras could support the burden which would have to be put upon it. The world will render Congress justice by judging of the impartiality shown in the considerations as set forth and which induced it to disapprove the Convention of Washington.

Our minds were not swayed in the least degree by any consideration of politics, of advantage nor of ill-will or antipathy towards the United States. We had in mind, over and above all, the Fatherland, for we aspire to preserve our own Government and to administer our own affairs without attempting to isolate ourselves from relations with civilized countries but rather to recognize the needfulness of such relations, but on condition that they do not encroach upon the national sovereignty and the existence of the State, for the light by which we should forever be guided is that diffused with such effulgence by the immortal act of September 15, 1821, which gave life to Central American nationality. These and only these are our reasons and we stand so firmly upon them that we hope that neither the present Government nor any other, to-day, to-morrow or ever, will disregard them, if Honduras is to continue as a sovereign, free and independent nation. For any Government which accepts conditions of tutelage under the terms imposed by this Convention or under others, will expose itself not only to the maledictions of history in the future but to the condemnation of popular justice in the present.

Hondurans, meditate on our words and decide whether we deserve your approbation or your censure.

1. Not printed.