and interest are so drawn up that the same amount is to be paid every year, and the debt will be extinguished July 1, 1922.

In addition to this, the largest single debt, there were, as already stated, several others, which, as no system had been adopted for meeting them, continued to be a source of irritation and annoyance. They had their origin in loans made at extravagant rates of interest, in services and supplies to the State, awards against the Government, and so on. Many of them represented claims recognized as validly due to foreigners, but they were all designated as interior or domestic debts.

In 1876, a caisse d'amortissement (sinking fund) was established with the aim of creating order and regularity concerning the debts in question. Still, they seemed rather to increase, and the hoped for order and regularity did not come about.

Thereupon, in 1887, they were all scaled down, and obligations of $80 and $100 Haitian currency, each bearing interest at 5 per cent per annum, payable every six months, were issued, with a provision for the payment of at least 1 per cent on the principal every year by lot.

In 1890, these obligations, together with some other special sums standing against the caisse d'amortissement, amounted to $4,056,120 currency, and $425,592.78 plus $150,000 of over due interest, or $575,592.78 gold, and required an annual payment of about $267,372 currency, and $76,000 gold. The payment of all except the gold debt and $235,400 of that in currency, is guaranteed by a customs duty of 51 cents on every 100 pounds of coffee exported. So far, the debt herein specified amounts to about $5,193,164.03 gold, and $4,056,120 currency. Besides these sums, there were (1) $300,000 gold and $300,000 currency due to the National Bank for advances, (2) $700,239 gold and $500,000 currency in obligations left by the Légitime Administration, (3) $5,546,352 of paper money in circulation, which the Government proposed redeeming, (4) sums due for loans made under the present Ad

ministration, amounting to $1,017,911.34, and (5) oustanding claims for salaries and supplies not then adjusted, but supposed to run up to about $800,000.

This left the whole national debt of Haiti in 1890 at $8,011,314.37 gold and $10,402,472 currency. If the latter be taken at 1.1734 to the dollar gold, which was the average rate of exchange as calculated by months at Port au Prince for the year 1891, the currency debt will represent $8,834,371.12 gold, so that the entire national debt of the Republic, up to the end of June, 1890, may be set down at $16,845,685.49 gold value. It should be observed, however, that of this sum, $5,546,352, equivalent to $4,710,277.70 gold, was in the form of paper money, bearing no interest, and still at that time in circulation.

According to the stipulations then in force, and to the ordinary rules governing the money market, the Government would have to pay annually on the principal and interest of its debt about $780,394.66.

It has been noticed that part of the export duty on coffee stands as a guarantee for several of the debts. In the same way, part of the export duty on logwood serves the same purpose.

Those duties are on coffee, $3.86% on each 100 (French) pounds, and on logwood, $2.95 per 1,000 pounds, or $5.90 per ton of 2,000 pounds. A glance at the way in which the fixing of these duties came about will tend to show how the Government has been controlled by circumstances in the matter.

In 1870, after the close of the Salnave war, the export duty on coffee was fixed at $2.50 per 100 pounds. In 1877, 50 cents was added to this for the caisse d'amortissement, making the amount $3. In 1882 and 1883, the prices of coffee on the markets of the world became so low that the Government of President Salomon readjusted the fixed duty, placing it at $1.66%.

Thereafter, in 1884, after the Bozelais insurrection and to meet indemnities created thereby, 10 per cent was added and 20 per cent more for the caisse d'amortissement, making it thus

$2.16%. In 1885, the duty was increased by $1 (three-fifths of the "fixed duty"), as a guarantee of the paper money issued and by 20 cents more for the caisse d'amortissement. The present administration has added 50 cents as a guarantee of a loan of $1,000,000 made in 1889. Thus, the duty now stands at $3.86% per 100 pounds. During the session of the Corps Législatif in 1892, an effort was made, but failed to increase the duty to $4.10.

The history of the duty on logwood has closely followed that of the duty on coffee, the duty originally fixed having been $1.50 per 1,000 pounds.

It is believed that since 1890 the public debt has been somewhat, but not materially, reduced beyond what the provisions heretofore named require, except in the matter of retiring the paper money from circulation, which has continued so that, according to the statement made on the subject in President Hyppolite's annual message submitted to the National Assembly, June 22, 1892, there was at that date only $4,040,795 of it in circulation, and according to the same document, the national debt then stood at $15,357,365.40. It is also expressly declared in the same connection that the ordonnances left by the Légitime administration are not included in the latter statement. It is noted in another chapter of this book that $943,482 currency was withdrawn from circulation during the fiscal year 1890-'91.

Although the Government pays but 5 per cent annual interest on the "Domingue debt" in France and on the "bons" of caisse d'amortissement, yet from the 3d of July, 1891, to the 18th of November of the same year, it negotiated no less than five loans all intended to be on limited time, among the resident merchants and capitalists, aggregating $958,483.43, on four of which it engaged to pay interest at the rate of 1 per cent per month, and on the other, amounting to $633,180, 1 and one-half of 1 per cent per month, or at the rate of 18 per cent per annum.*

These high rates of interest are customary in the country.

*The Government's arrangements with the National Bank in regard to the rates of interest differ somewhat from those stated herein.