138 / 236
130
INTERNATIONAL AMERICAN CONFERE "CE.
I inclose translatiou which appea.red iu ttu :F'ouografo, a leadiug Maracaibo news–
p a pH, giving a tolerably accurate idea of the geneml feeling of the pe?ple.
It
is
true that all railway ' coust.nwted in Venezuela have been favored wtth a guar–
auty clanse in the coutmct , ítS:mring to tlle contractors an interest of
7
per ceut.
upon the capital invested,
b~t
it is complained
~n
this case
tha~
the
~stimate.
of the
co t of constructiou is exces:;11 ve. Of the
170
kdometers compn sed
m
the lme the
fir t
60
have been estimated to cost
,:'60,000
each and the rem:1iniug
110 $70,000
eaoh.
It
tuust be ackuowledged that the couditions topograpl.lically and otllerwise are
p rculiar, as one partof the road wi_ll pass
throu~h
swamps
an~l
ruorasses
ancl
auot~er
will
uecessitate heavy rock work
Lll
order to cltrub the Cordillera; but eveu takmg
all this iuto con ideration it is to be regretted that American capitalists cliu not t.ake
this enterpnse in llaml. l!'or years this
consula.tehas ca.lled. atteutiou to its impor–
tance aud to other opportunlties for successful iuvesr.meo ts, bu t these suggest.ious
have been ntilized a lmost invariably by foreigners andnot by Americans, for whose
k nowleücre
aml
benefit they were
in
tended.
In thi'l consular district. there
is
now one mil way in activo and suncessful opemtion
(that of La Ceibn), which will probably soon be flxtendetl to Valera by a Freuch com–
pauv.
T
l.lei\Ieritla. rottd is French property, and there is still another about to be
coustructerl from one of the t ributarios of the lake to the city of San Cristobal, also
nnder a French contract. \Ve are thus losiug constantly excellent opportu nities of
angmenting our commercial prestige
in
·this Repnblic. The Erench, particularly,
llave recenrly sbown much activity in Venezuelan enterprises, aud the only coal de–
posi t where serions efforts have been maue for t he extraction of the mineral ís granted
toa Pa,ris company.
I n this connection I beg to state, as inuicative of the interest taken by Europeans
in
these matters, that my report of February 3, l8d8, referring to commercial and in–
dustrialmatters
m
this con Lllar clistrict, pnulishecl by the Department, attracted
the attention of the Briti h Government, aud tho foreign minister recently seut a
personal cablegram to the Briti,;h comml at this por t, requiring detaileü information
respecting the petroleum deposits referred to a t length in my above mentioned clis·
patch.
It
wonl.l be gratify ing tomA
wer~
our own people to take advantage of the e -
nnmerous oppo!·tnnities for the enterprises of raíl ways, coal mines, petroleum deposits,
etc., but as it !.las often been mentionetl in consula r reports from various parts of
South America the information thus furnishecl for the benefit of the capitalista, mer–
cbanta, manufacturera, an
l
exporten; of the Umteu Statea is acted opon more by
Europeans than by our own people.
To returu, boweYer, to the rail way, which is the imruediate subject of this dia–
patch,
I
ahall endea.vor to
lreep
the Department informad asto iLs progresa aud
e
bances
of completion. There are other Lletails in connectiou wi th the eoterprise, such a:; the
alleged exclusive privilege of steam uavigatiou on the lake, which are not yet snffi–
ciently cle:uly clefined forme to ínfurru the Depar tment witb accurac:v, bnt
I
think
I can safely aay that snch a monopoly can not possibly e:s:isr., especiaUy as it would
confiict
dir~ctly
with t he interests of an American company charterecl an(l incorpo–
r a.ted in NewYork. (Report by E.
H.
Plamacher, cousnl, M:aracaibo, l\1arch8,
11389.)
I
have the honor to furnish the Depar tment with further cletails respeeting the
p rogress of the rail way from the lake coast to the cit y of l\1erida, as referrecl to in my
dispatch No.
:l74,
of March
4,
last.
In
Jauua.rylast the chíef eugineer, l\Ir. William
H.
Burr, an E nglishman,
a.nda
staff of a "i:;tants, principally American · eugaged in Now York, toO"ether wíth an
Eoglish pllysician, arrived at Maracaibo and began the organizatio"'n of the work.
'The circumstances attendant npon tbe concession for this enterprise were aomewbat
peculiar, and a brief ré umé thereof will be of intere t to t.hose of our owu country–
men wbo may contempla-te similar enterprisea in thi:; Republic.
\-Vhen the question of a rail way from the lake sbore to :\ierida
was
first serioasly
di cu, ed, Gnzman Blanco was then sopreme in Venezuela and in actual possession
of the presidency.
His son-in la.w, the Dake ele U orny, visited thia conntry immediately after bis
marriage,
anU.
was
at
once grantecl various valuable concessions, among t hem one
fo.r the construction of a railway froru San Carlos, a river port at the extreme sout.h
ol
Lake M:aracaibo, to the city of .\Ierida.
This concession was grauted by the ex:ecutive power, needing only the approval of
Congress to render it \·al
id.
As
for nearly twenty years, however, the will of
Gn~man had been the law of the land, and as the national leo-i latnre had never hesl·
ta~ed
to approve all of hi acts without
di
cnssion,
it
was taken for grauted that thi
r~tlway
?ontract of de Moruy wonld be at once confrrmec, although its terms
wert~
h_1ghly d1 advantageous to the conntry and proportionately favorable
to
the conces–
sionaire.
I~
a previous dispatch I pointed out the ju t gronods of the people at large
a.gain~t
the I.Ssue ofa e ntract
b&sed
upon such uneqnai terms, and inclosed newspaper
arti·