ART. VII. The Present State of Colombia; containing an Account of the principal Events of its revolutionary War; the Expeditions fitted out in England to assist its Emancipation; its Constitution; Financial and Commercial Laws: Revenue Expenditure and Public Debt; Agriculture; Mines; Mining and other Associations: with a Map, exhibiting its Mountains, Rivers, Departments and Provinces. By an Officer late in the Colombian Service. 8vo. pp. 336. 10s. 6d. London. Murray. 1827.

THIS is unquestionably one of the most intelligent and instructive works, which have yet been written upon the political affairs of any of the South American republics. The author, who describes himself as an officer late in the Colombian service, appears to be minutely acquainted with all the details of his subject. He has examined with his own eyes the most important sections of the territory of Colombia, he has closely observed her progress from a colony to a state, has been a partaker of her successful military exertions, and a witness of her abortive efforts to become a naval power. He has moreover made himself intimately acquainted with all the elements of her financial strength, the actual state of her revenue, and expenditure, the course of her legislation, the character and practical operation of her constitution, and the information thus acquired, marked by every appearance of accuracy, he lays before his readers in a concise, luminous and masterly style.

The author candidly states that, in submitting his work to the public at this moment, he is actuated by a desire to shew that the natural riches of Colombia are sufficient to extricate her from her present financial embarrassments, and to maintain her independence against any attack that can be made upon it by Spain. The latter part of his purpose, it was not difficult for him to accomplish. The new Portuguese constitution will probably afford abundant employment to Ferdinand during his ill-omened life, even if he had not been utterly destitute of the means necessary to the support of a war in the other hemisphere. But we must confess that with respect to the other, and the more important part of his proposition, after an attentive consideration of the facts which the author has stated, and the arguments which he has founded upon them, we do not coincide in his conclusions. Perhaps he is right in believing that, notwithstanding the present unfavourable aspect of its affairs, Colombia possesses the means of extricating itself from the difficulties in which it is involved.' But if there be little or no hope, derivable from the actual institutions, the legislative principles, and the conduct of the influential officers of the republic, that those means shall be positively applied to the purposes to which they may be adapted, the creditors of Colombia will be precisely in the same situation, as if those means had no existence at all.

How does it improve the prospects of the Colombian bondholder, to whom two dividends are now due, to learn that there are numer

ous fertile vallies amid her Cordilleras, capable of producing every grass, and vegetable, and fruit that grows in Europe, if there be no inhabitants to cultivate those vallies, and no roads or canals to furnish them with a path to the ocean? Will it improve the Colombian stock a quarter per cent., to make it known, that there are nearly three millions of persons scattered over the provinces of that state, four-fifths of whom are in the habit of smoking, and ought to contribute to the revenue an indirect tax upon their cigars to the amount of two millions of dollars, whereas in point of fact they do not contribute under the present management half that sum? Shall the Congress enact a law, making it compulsory on every age, and condition and sex, to smoke, morning, noon and night? Or if the revenue be injured by smugglers, is the Congress in a situation, or is it likely ever to be able, to prevent a Colombian from using a cigar, for which he has not a permit from the stores of the republic? The very idea of such a thing is ridiculous. The truth is, that the whole of the financial system of Colombia, is founded upon the basis that had been already established there, when that country was under the colonial administration of Spain-a system, whose most essential parts consist of monopolies. If it was a matter of great difficulty even for Spain, with her hosts of armed and tyrannical peculators, to render such unnatural sources productive of wealth, how is it to be expected that Colombia, professing at least to act upon principles of liberty, can obtain by mere laws or edicts, duties which seldom came from the people except upon the blade of the sword?

Englishmen too generally and too hastily concluded, when the Spanish American colonies assumed the character of states, that they would at once resemble the states of North America, in their institutions, and in the rapid development of their native energies. But it has too seldom been remembered, that the former had been from their origin accustomed to a complicated organization, contrived with the utmost ingenuity, in order to keep them in a state of perpetual thraldom; whereas the Anglo-American colonies, from their first foundation, were allowed in a great measure to govern themselves, and the original colonists, moreover, had been all men sternly attached to liberty-a feeling which they did not fail to transmit to their descendants.

'From this view of the different treatment which,' as our author forcibly observes, the colonies of the two countries received from the parent state, it is evident that we cannot refer to the present prosperity of the United States, and deduce from analogy any conclusions respecting the future condition of the late Spanish colonies. It must be recollected, that the latter have much to do before they can arrive at the point from which the Anglo-Americans set out; and that before they can even form a proper estimate of the advantages of the system they seem inclined to adopt, they must divest themselves of their previous habits and opinions, and substitute others of which they have hitherto had no experience. Their progress will,

necessarily, be slow; they have chased the persons of their oppressors from their soil, but they still, in too many instances, retain their institutions and their prejudices. It will be a difficult task to eradicate the fixed and deeply-rooted prejudices of the present race; nor can, till a new generation has sprung up, the emancipation of these countries be considered as complete.'-pp. 20-21.

These observations are perfectly just. But if they be so, what becomes of the hopes of the Colombian creditor in the meantime? If it will require, as undoubtedly it will, a new generation, to eradicate the deeply rooted prejudices which counteract the new principles of liberty, ingrafted upon the old Spanish institutions of despotism, how many generations must rise and pass away, before the revenue of Colombia shall be adequate to the discharge of its liabilities?

As this is a question that deeply interests the British public at the present moment, we shall confine ourselves to that portion of the work before us, which treats of the financial resources of that state. We find the less difficulty in adopting this course, as the author has scarcely added any thing to the history of the revolution of Colombia, and of the expeditions fitted out in England to assist it, which was not known before. Upon this topic, however, we must do him the justice to say, that the few chapters which he dedicates to it are remarkably clear and well-digested, considering the various and desultory transactions which he had to narrate.

After mentioning the principal events which led to the establishment of the independence of Colombia, the author thus sums up the condition to which that country has been reduced, by the sanguinary and obstinate conflict in which she was so long engaged. Her towns have been laid in ruins, and her provinces depopulated; her agriculture has languished; the working of her mines, an important source of her wealth, has been suspended for want of hands to carry on the necessary operations; and the commerce of her maritime cities has been completely paralysed by the diminished quantity of her produce, and the contracted demand for the supplies of foreign merchandise.' (p.53). This general picture, would seem sufficiently alarming; but lest it should produce any effect of that sort, the author adds to the bane an antidote.

'It cannot be expected,' he says, 'that she should instantaneously recover from so severe a shock, and cicatrise wounds so deep as those which she has received; but such is the fertility of her soil, the salubrity of her climate, and the facility with which the necessaries of life are procured, that under the fostering care of a provident and patriotic government, a very few years will suffice to recruit her exhausted population, repair her losses, and spread over her lands that abundance with which nature so prodigally rewards the exertions of man in those favoured climes.'-p. 53.

We should be extremely happy to agree in this conclusion, but we apprehend that the smiling prospects here held out by the author, if ever they be realized, are still more distant than he will

permit us to suspect. In the first place, what can be expected from a state which affects to be republican, but which admits an oligarchical principle in the most essential stage of its representative system? According to the provisions of the Colombian constitution, one or more representatives are assigned to each province, in proportion to its population; but how are they chosen? The province is divided into cantons; the inhabitants of each canton assemble and choose one elector for every four thousand souls, and one more for a surplus of three thousand. The electors thus chosen, meet on the first day of every fourth year to elect the representative, or representatives, to congress, and this intermediate method of obtaining the suffrages of the people is supposed to be a sufficient acknowledgment of their sovereignty*.

But the electors of all the provinces, besides choosing the representatives, do something more; they elect the president and vicepresident of the state, and the senators for the departments. Thus, in fact, the whole of the sovereignty of the people is delegated, not to the government and congress, but to those who constitute them, -the electors; and that connexion between the legislature and the people, which is the very essence of representative governments, is effectually prevented. It was this defect in the Spanish constitution, which rendered the Spanish people so indifferent to its subversion; and it is to the same defect in the Colombian constitution we may trace the numerous factions which have embarrassed her career, and which must always continue to do so, while she is under an oligarchy of electors, instead of the wholesome control of the whole body of the people. In a monarchy, the question would be a very different one-but here we are speaking of a republic.

Another serious feature in the history of Colombia is, the precarious tenure by which she holds that very name. The reader is aware that it has only been adopted, since the union of the different provinces of New Grenada and Venezuela into one state. The proceedings of General Paez have not yet assumed a definitive aspect, but, so far as we are at present informed, they seem to have given a shock to the union, which it will not soon recover. The wishes of Bolivar will undoubtedly be for its preservation, as they were chiefly the cause of its establishment. But it remains to be seen how far his personal influence can reconcile the people of Venezuela, to the continuance of a union which from the beginning they disliked, and which transferred the seat of government to Bogota. The connexion is besides, as the author remarks, an arbitrary one, forced upon them in spite of their natural limits. But if the two members of the union should separate, will they pay the consolidated debt? Will they be able to pay it, even if they should be so disposed? The actual means of the Colombian government seem to be

* We observe that this objectionable principle is retained in the provisional constitution lately prescribed to Venezuela, by General Paez.

derived from the following sources: The direct contribution levied on land and other descriptions of property, which amounted in the year ending in July 1825, to 194,558 dollars: the Alcabala duty, originally a tax granted by the cortes of Spain to their kings, to assist them in the wars against the Moors, and established towards the end of the sixteenth century as an impost in America, which amounted in the same year to 119,902 dollars: the duties on distillation, 60,563 dollars: the stamp duties, estimated at 60,000 dollars: the duties on imports, 1,888,006 dollars; and those on exports, 467,848 dollars. In addition to these taxes and duties, the government derived from the salt works a revenue of 187,904 dollars, and from its monopoly of tobacco, 859,066 dollars, during the year already mentioned; amounting in the whole, if our calculation be correct, to the sum of 3,837,847 dollars, to meet an expenditure of 15,487,708 dollars. Thus we need be at no loss to understand the reason, why the two dividends now due to the Colombian stockholders have not been paid. The difference between the receipts and the expenditure of 1825, amounted to upwards of eleven millions of dollars; the deficiency for 1826 would be of course still more formidable, unless the revenue has been very materially improveda fact which we suppose nobody would venture to assert.

The expenditure of the Colombian government, as above stated, must appear to be enormous for such a republic. In fact it is so, and in this respect resembles the other Spanish American independent states, all of which are administered upon a very extravagant scale of expense. In Colombia, during the session, the senators and representatives receive nine dollars a-day, and a dollar and a half per league for travelling expenses, from their usual places of residence. These two items must make a considerable figure in the budget every year, as the session lasts, we believe, from four to six months, and many of the senators and representatives live three and four hundred leagues from Bogota. The president, vice president, and the secretaries of state, are also highly paid, and the civil as well as the military establishments are upon a prodigal scale. The latter (the military establishment) alone amounted, in the year 1825, to 6,803,296 dollars, thus absorbing in itself more than the whole revenue of the state.

The government were silly enough to spend considerable sums in attempting to raise a navy. They actually purchased in Europe and North America, vessels equal in force to a British 74. Our author tells us, that they have now in their ports, two or three vessels of this class, some corvettes, and several brigs and schooners: but unfortunately there are not in the whole republic, sailors enough to man one of their large ships; and English and Anglo-American sailors being tired of the service, it is very probable that their newly purchased navy will lie in port till it falls to pieces, or becomes a prey to worms.'-(p. 211).

It is true, that notwithstanding the burthen of their domestic