( 20 )

ese derecho de la ¡lalria potestad, no hay razón para no reco-
nocerlo en eslos'casos, y privar de él á aquellos a quienes debe
¡•resumirse que comprende la ley.

Creo fanber demostrado, señores, que el patronato es un»
verdadera tutela, y que por consiguiente no puede enajenarse
por ser un acto odioso, desde que es contrario a los saludables
objetos que la ley ha tenido en vista al establecerlo, y a los
derechos que ella La querido acordar al liberto.

Terminando este trabajo, me permitiré emitir mi opinión,
.sobre la conveniencia que resultaría de la promulgación do una
ley, que destruyendo radicalmente el mal introducido a este
respecto, fijase de un modo claro y esplicito el proceder de los
patronos, al enajenar — por causas justificadas — los servicios
de sus libertos. — Creo también que no seria menos impor-
portante, que se hicieran efectivas las disposiciones délas teyes
que determinan, entre las obligaciones del patrono respecto al
liberto, la de darlo una educación conveniente, y dedicarlo a
un oficio ó profesión, con el cual pueda, en su mayoridad, ad-
quirir honestamente medios de subsistencia. — El desuso en
que han caído estas disposiciones, deberían llamar seriamente
la atención del lejislador : — esas obligaciones son sanciona-
das, no solo por las leyes que hablan do la tutela en general,
sino especialmente por las de patronato, y su falta de cumpli-
miento, con menoscabo de uno de los primeros derechos del li-
berto, no debería ser mirada con indiferencia. — La condición
de estos seres, señores, reclama la protección que las leyes tan
justamente han querido acordarles, y todo aquello quo tienda
á su puntual ejecución, es conveniente, moral y de utilidad
común á la Sociedad.

ARGrENTIKE   RE PUBLIC.

THE QUESTION

BSTWKKIf

BUENOS ATEES

JJTD TSB

PROVTNCES OF THE

AEGENTINE CONFEDERA TIO N,

iüD THE lUUtl BT WHICH

FOBEIGN NATIONS

CAS   CO-OI'EHAXK   IN   ITS SOIAJTIOlí.

THE QTJESTION

BBTWEEN

BUENOS ATRBS AND THE PROVINCES OF THE
ARGENTINE CONFEDERATION.

§ 1. The knowledge of the question is a hey to the policy tohich
foreign powers ought to. adopt in the Plata. It is not a ques-
tion of personality, as is álleged hy Sueños Ayres.

Whether it is intended to offer a mediation or an intervention, or
to take any part whatever in the question which divides Buenos Ayres
from the other proviuces which form the Argentino Bepublic, it is ne-
cessary to know thoroughly the nature of that question—what are the
causes which have produced it, and what objeets it has in view ?

This question is but little known in Europe, although it has been
mucb spoken of. There was a special object in making it unintelligible ;
and it still ezists. It is sufficient to explain it truly, to show where
lies the interest in rendering it so little clear.

According to the assertions of the Buenos Ayrians, the whole
cause of that question is now confíned to the person of General Ur-
quiza, actual Fresident of the Confederation, and to the hatred which
he has inspired to them. Urquiza is detested in Buenos Ayres, be-
cause he offended it in presenting himself, not dressed sufficiently well,
on the day on which he was received there as a liberator (after defeat-
ing Rosas) ; because on some occasion he used offensive words in a
proclamation ; because he ordered his soldiers to wear red favours, <fcc.

Ib it to be believed that the sensitiveness of the people of Buenos
Ayres is so great that for such motives it coneeived such a hatred for
Urquiza as to mako of that personal hatred a reason to erect itself into
an independent State P The history of the past, and the cxplanation cf
what takes place at present, prevent the sincerity of such motives from
being believed.

■ a1

No one who recollects what the people of Buenos Ayres suffered
at the hands of General Rosas, for fifteen years, will be able to believe
that it is for such motives of personal Bensitiveness that Buenos Ayres
has resolved to cease to belong to the Argentino K«public*

§2.   Jtfotives of interest wliicTi Sueños Ayres has  to oppose the Na-
tional Constitution and the treaties of free navigation of inland i
rivers.— Why have such acts been effected without its participa-
tion ?—To combat them in some way or other,  has been and
always will be, the policy of Buenos Ayres.

The real causes of the opposition are very different; they are con-
fined to material interests. Buenos Ayres opposes the new order of
things, inaugurated by Urquiza, for the following motives of political
and commercial interest : First, because it has created a common go-
vernment for all the  próvinces, wíích has taken possession of the

• In the writings of the Señores Alcina, Mitre, Marmol, Sarmiento, tus.,
who now support the cause of Buenos Ayres and speak of the sensitiveness
of its people, we find repeatedli mentioned the following faets.

On the day on which Rosas became Governor of Buenos Ayres, five hundred
of the most distinguisnad of its citizens had to paint on their lips artificial
moustachios, because they^bad none naturally. The whole population of Buenos f
Ayres wore mourning for two years, on account of the death of the Señora Rosas.
The same population wore, for fifteen years, a red ribbon on the hat, with the
motto of " Death to the Unilarian*." A ribbon of the same colour was worn at
the button-hole of the coat, along with a red waistcoat. The performance could
not begin in any theatre before the arrival of the daughter of General Rosas,
whenever she was to assist thereat. At her coming in, every body stood up and
hailed with vivns the daughter of the Governor, as well as her father ; and then only
did the performance begin. In every docutnent, whether official or semi-ofneial, and
in every advertisement inserted in the newspapers, it was necessary to prefix the
motto of "Death to the eavage Unitarian»!"' The portrait of General Rosas was
placed, and remained habitually, on the altara in the churches! It was drawn on 1
triumphal cara by persona of the firet society in Buenos Ayres. General Rosas was
re-elected thirty-three times to continué in the Government, which allowed such
things to be done. On the day of the last attempt against him, Buenos Ayres fought
for six houra on the battle field to maintain the power of Rosas. But it was de-
•troyed in apite of it, and Rosas is now at Southampton, in consequence of the
triumph obtained by General TJrquiia, the man so detested by Buenos Ayres.
(See El Peregrino, a poem of Sr. Marmol, of Buenos Ayres ¡ and El Comercio del
Plata, written by Sr. F. Várela and Sr. V. Alcina, present governor of Buenos Ayres.)

All these faets are vouohed for by the official collections of Buenos Ayres, which
are to be found in general circulation. But in spite of this, we have to recaí them to
our sorrow, as we are compelled to show that the true cause of the aeparation of Bue-
nos Ayres is not to be found in tho motives of wounded senaitiv enees which it pro-
fesses to feel.

revenues and powers belonging to the nation, which the local govern-
meut of Huenos Ayres had kept for forty years, because there was no
national goverument. Secondly, because it has given life to the common
government by opening to foreign commerce the river ports of the pró-
vinces, while Buenos Ayres had hitherto monopolised that commerce.

The Confederation has consecrated the institution of that common
or general goverument by the Federal Constitution, published in 1853,
and by the institution of the new law of river navigation brought
about by the internacional treaties which it signed in July, 1853, with
Fngland, France, and the United States. The proviuces have not pro-
mulgated that Constitution, or made those treaties, out of hatred to
Buenos Ayres. To uuderstand this, they have but to be read. The
Constitution gave to Buenos Ayres the rank of capital. The treaties
are, in part, the work of England and France, who had no motive of
hatred against Buenos Ayres.

However, Buenos Ayres considere as an act of hostility, the natural
withdrawal of its usurped powers and pecuniary nieans, which ensued
from that Constitution and those treaties ; and it considered itself huin-
bled by General Urquiza, as the promoter of these compaets.

Buenos Ayres protested against the Constitution and the treaties
which deprived her of the Argentine revenues and powers, which it had
held in hand during the period when the próvinces stood isolated from
each other, and had no common and general government.

Buenos Ayres does not own, and never will own, that these were
the motives of its protestation.   But, in reality, it had no other.

Buenos Ayres pretends not to acknowledge the Argentine Consti-
tution and the treaties of free navigation, because they have been made
without its concurrence.

To prove that this is a mere pretext, it is sufficient to know why
they have been made without its concurrence. They have been made
without it, because Buenos Ayres would never have consented to take
any part in the creation of a government, which. was to succeed its own
provincial government in tbe general direction of the country ; ñor in the
stipulation of treaties of navigation, which were to withdraw from its
port the monopoly of direct foreign commerce and of the whole Custom-
house revenues. Forty years of vain hopes had enabled the próvinces
to see that they had no longer to expect that Buenos Ayres would act
in opposition to its local interests, however misuuderstood.

In fact, to ask that Buenos Ayres should concur to the creation of
a national government and of a direct commerce for all the provinces)
would have been to have required that it should have stripped itself,
with its own hands, of the government of the whole nation and of the
monopoly of that nation's foreign commerce, by means of which it ap-6

propriated to itself the Custom-bouse revenues of tbe fourteen pro vincos.
That is the reason why Buenos Ayres always prevented the formation
of a national government and the opening of the river porta. It pre-
vented Bivadavia, in 1826, from doing this, as it hinders. at present,
General Urquiza ; and, as it would prevent au ángel from Heaven, who
might attempt to organise a national government with tbe revenues and
powers which Buenos Ayres usurped for forty years, to the detriment
of the whole nation. Urquiza is not the obstacle ; it is the nation
itself, by its setting about to take what belongs to it. To contest
to the nation what is its own, Buenos Ayres ignores and denies the ex-
istence of the nation, and calis it Urquiza; it individualises it in the
person of a man, to be able to ignore it without acaudal.

Such is the policy which it has observed with regard to the provinces,
throughout thu whole revolution. All the internal treaties, which put
an end to its civil wars, prove this. It was the object of its struggles
with European governments, as is proved by the treaties which it signed
with France and England, in 1847, 1849 and 1850, and in which Buenos
Ayres made them recognise that the navigation of the rivers flowing
into tbe Plata " was always considered as the inland navigation of the
'' Argentino Confederation."

With such precedents, is it to be wondered at that Buenos Ayres
should protest against the institution of a national government, and
against the treaties of free river navigation which give it an irrevocable
position from the day on which they are carried into execution, in spite
of its resistance ?

In fact, Buenos Ayres resisted them, as was to be expected, by its
solemn protestations, and by assuming an isolated position, which is a
protestation of fact, much mero efiective than protestations in writing.

§3.    Solemn protestation of Sueños Agres against the principie of free
river navigation, and its motives of local interest.

The double protestation against the "principie of the Argentino
national sovereignty," and against the "principie of the free navigation
of the rivers flowing into the Plata'''' is attested by an authentic and
solemn piece of evidence, placed by the said Buenos Ayrian government
into the banda of the governments of England, France, and tbe United
States. This evidence is found in a memorándum of that government,
addressed to the aforesaid cabinets, and dated September 28tb, 1853.
In tbat memorándum are stated and developed the motives, which the
government of Buenos Ayres believed it liad, to protest, as it did, on the
31st of August, 1853, against the treaties of free navigation stipuluted

7

by General Urquiza, in July of the same year, with England, France
and the United States.

As that protest in no way prevented the ratifícation of fchose trea-
ties, but, on the contrary, predisposed the foreign governments against
that of Buenos Ayres, this latter pretended to deny the sense of its
protestations, so as to stimulate their confidence and to contrive sur-
reptitiously tbat those governments should assist its intention of under-
mining the treaties.

Buenos Ayres has pretended that its protestations do not refuse to
acknowledge the principie of the free navigation of the rivers flowing
into the Plata; and yet the very words of its protestations leave no
doubt on that point. We deem it best to quote them here, to let them
speak for themselves.

Here is the way in which the principie of free river navigation is
denied by them :—" The principie of the free navigation of the rivers,
" thé recognition of which is established as a necessary condition for
" the continued possession, by Buenos Ayres, of the island of Martin
" Garcia, is not a right of the powers who make the treaties. Internal
" rivers belong exclusively to the bordering powers ; and these powers
" have the right of allowing, or of prohibiting, their navigation, to foreign
" flags. At what epooh, on what occasion, have France and England
"recognised, as a principie, the free navigation of rivers for all the
> " powers of the globo, as the treaties of July the lOth and the 27th, es-

" tablish it ?......Far from it, France and England have

** recognised the contrary principie in several public treaties which they
" have made with the Argentine Bepublic; they have admitted that
" the navigation of the Párana and the Uraguay ought to be Bubject
" exclusively to the laws and regulations which it will seem good to the

" Bepublic to decree.......Thus, then, it was impossible

" to define, by the ñame of a principie, the free navigation of the internal
** rivers of a State, for all the nations of the globe.*

* Here is the French original text:—" Le principe de 1» libre navigation de» riviéres
" dont ou établit la reconnaissance comme condition nécessaire pour que Bueno»
" Ayres continué a posséder Martin Garcia, n'est point un droit des puissances qui
" font le» traites. Les riviéres intérieures appartiennent exolusivement sux puiasancea
" riveraines, et cea puissances ont le droit de permettre ou de prohiber leur navigation
" aux Drapeaux étrangers. A quelle époque, á quelle occasion la France et 1'Angle-
" terre ont-ellea recomíu comme un principe la libre navigation dea rivieree pour toutea
" les puissances du monde, comme l'établissent les traites du 10 et da 27 juillet f"

" Bien loin de la, la Franco et l'Angleterre ont reconnu le principe contraire
" daña plusieure traites publica qu'elles ont faitea aveo la République Argentine;
" ellos ont admis que la navigation du Paraná et de l'Uruguay doit s'assujetir
" uniqueinent aux lois et aux rég'ementa qu'U plaira a la République d'amostre.s

Notwithstanding these concluding words, the Buenos Ayrian go-
vernment has pretended that its protestation does not refuse to ac-
knowledge the principie of free river navigation, but only the right
which the Argentine Confederation had of making these treaties with-
out the concurrence of Sueños Ayres.

The best mode of proving the sincerity of that assertion would be
for Buenos Ayres to accept the treaties of free navigation in principie.
But, not only has it not done so to the present time, but even now
it still leaves in vigour its protestation of the 31st of August, 1853,
wherein it is said that " it has not accepted and will never accept the
" mentioned treaties, and does not recognize any of the obligations
" which they stipulate."

§ 4.    Solemn protestation of Sueños Ayres against the principie of the
sovereignty of the Argentino pcople, of which it forms apart.

Could Buenos Ayres protest thus against these treaties, because
they had been concluded without its concurrence ? By no me.ms.
Por this would be to deny to the Argentine nation the sovereign right
of making laws for all the countries which form its territory, or else
(what would be the same thing) it would be to deny the principie of
the sovereignty of the Argentine people. To deny this principie, as
Buenos Ayres has done, to dissimulate its having refused to recognise
the principie of freedom of river navigation, is to cover over a scandalous
act by a more scandalous one. On this score the protestation of Buenos
Ayres, against the validity of the treaties of river freedom made by the
confederation, is a manifestó of disorder and anarchy which deserves the
most serious attention from foreign governments. It is an authentic
proof that it represents a revolution merely, and the destruction of all
regular authority.

The following are the words of the protestation, in which it denies
the sovereign authority of the Argentine people, the only principie of au-
thority and of government admitted in these provinces since they eman-
cipated themselves from the Spanish authority :—" This principie of au-
" thority (the will of the greater number) which is the origin desired to
" be given to the power of the congress and of General .Urquiza, over

" Ainsi done on ne pouvait déaigner sous la dénomination de principe la libre
" navigation dea rivierea intérrieurea d'un Etat, pour toutea les nation» du monde."

Memorándum du Governeinent de Buenos Ajn» sur lea traites conclua par lea
Ministres de Franee, d'Angleterre et des Etats Unis aveo le general Justo José de
Urquiza, touchant la libre navigation des rivierea, le Paraná et l'Uruguay, du 23
Septembre, 1853.

I

0

" Buenos Ayres, is the moro odious, that this population and its terri-
" tory is spoken of as if it was necessary to consider it as a stnall fraction
" of the republic's territory, and the vote of which it was not necessary
" to take into account, even in the most important changes. Buenos
" Ayres in a body will not believe it. It knows and will ever maintain
" that there is no power on earth which can impose its will upon it, if
" the people has not contributed to its creation, and does not find itself

" represented in a political body......As there is no express

*' compact, ñor political bond, which unites the several provinces into
" one only moral impersonification, they remain in their natural right,
'* without a government superior to that of each of them."*

Buenos Ayres calling odious the authority of the greater number
of the Argentines, who form the republic of which it recognises itself
no small an integral part, and yet denying the existence of any national
bond among its provinces, proclaiming that they remain in their natural
right, without any power superior to the government of each of them,
and maintaiuing that no power on earth has the right to impose its will
on it, does more harm to the general interest than in denying the prin-
cipie of free river navigation ; since it raises the standard of Filibustry,
and renders impossible the settlement of peace by attacking radically
every principie of authorUy and of government.

§5.   Sueños Ayres formrrly goveined the nation by isolating the pro-
vinces.

Buenos Ayres pursues a calculation of self-interest in this policy
of disorder. It takes an interest in the isolated existence of the Argen-
tine provinces, and in the absence of a common government, so that the
government of its province may fulfil towards them the functions of a
national government, as was the case for forty years. And what took
place duriug that period P

Although scattered and isolated, from the absence of a common
government for the interior of the country, the Argentine provinces
formed but one republic—the Argentine Republic. All the provinces
were convinced of this. All Argentines considered each other, as they
really are, fellow-citizens. "Whether disjoined or organized for an in-
terior government, the republic always needed an exterior representa-
tion. In either case the provinces were obliged to entrust it to the
local government residing in the only external part of the country,
namely, the government of the province of Buenos Ayres.

* Memorándum of the Government of Buenos Ayres, of the 28th of Septetnber,
1853, addreased to the foreign governments, proteating against the treaties of fre»
navigation.10

Acting as the proxy of the governrnents of the interior, in tho
management of foreign policy, the governor of Buenos Ayres carne to
be the representative or agent of Salta, of Tujui, of Mendoza, of Cor-
dova, and, finally, of all the fourteen Argentine proviuces. He was the
ruler of all the provinces in the matter of foreign policy; that is to say,
in what related to peace and war, to treaties of commerce and naviga-
tjon, to the establishment and regulation of custom-houses, to the nomi-
nation and reception of diplomatic agenta, &c. In all these branches of
administration the acts of the Governor of Buenos Ayres were obliga-
tory for all the inland provinces.

Now, who elected this deputy of fourteen constituents, and to
whom was this Foreign Secretary of fourteen provinces indebted for
his election ? He was chosen by the only province of Buenos Ayres,
without the intervention of any of the other provinces in that election.
Buenos Ayres, then, bestowed on the fourteen provinces their President
for foreign añairs, since it alone elected its governor, the supreme direc-
tor of foreign policy. But who paid this President and his ministers ?
The Custom-house revenues of the whole of the'provinces, it is true, but
which all flowed into the hands of the Provincial Treasurer of Buenos
Ayres. The coffers of Buenos Ayres engulphed the whole of these na-
tioual dues, and Buenos Ayres alone therefore paid this President and his
ministers. And by whom could they be dismissed from office ? Again,
by Buenos Ayres alone ; so that the inland provinces, which had no
tihure in the election of their head for foreign aífairs, or control on his
retribution, exercised therefore no sort of influence on him, and could
expeet no responsibility whatever either from him or from his ministers.
The same result took place with regard to the provincial legislature of
Buenos Ayres. Elected exclusively by the inhabitants of its province,
it discharged the functions of a national congress, in the matter of
foreign relations, and it approved or annulled international treaties, which
were binding on all the provinces, without the latter having any chance
of intervening in their stipulation, either directly or indirectly.

Such was the immense advantage derived by Buenos Ayres from
the isolation of the Argentine provinces. Por, by reason of that isola-
tion, it alone governed them for forty years.

11

§ fi. The want of unión among the province* gave to Sueno» JLyres the power
of governing them by means of the colonial latos on navigation, which
closed all the ports but one.

What were the means by which the isolation or anarchy of the
provinces brought into the hands of the Bingle province of Buenos Ayres
the whole of their cxternal administration ? By the ordinary working
of the Spanish colonial laws on river navigation. These laws closed all
the Argentine ports to direct foreign commerce, with the exception oí
the port of Buenos Ayres. This exception, or colonial privilege, made
of Buenos Ayres the capital or metrópolis, of necessity, of all the pro-
vinces.

So as to have the right of representing abroad the other Argentine
provinces, Buenos Ayres prof'essed to be an integral part of the State
of the united or confederated provinces. In fact, without being an
Argentine province, it could not legitimately represent the others.
This is again, even now, its very policy. It preserves its national
colour, to have a pretext for interference in the family of the pro-
vinces.

To keep from the other provinces, along with the monopoly of ei-
ternal representation, that of all the Custom-house revenues of direct
foreign commerce, which Buenos Ayres also held, it was necessary that
there should be no general government created directly and immediately
by the provinces, since the mere existence of such a government would
have stopped all the proflts which its absence left to the local govern-
ment of Buenos Ayres.

Therefore, to prevent the creation of all national Argentine govern-
ment was, for Buenos Ayres, to defend and preserve the national power
and revenues, which it held provisionally because there was no common
government.

The possession of the national power and of its resources facilitated
for Buenos Ayres the work of preventing the other provinces, which
were disunited and impoverished, from creating a common national go-
vernment. The provinces tried it several times. They fought for it
against Buenos Ayres. In many domestic treaties of peace, which put
an end to those civil wars, Buenos Ayres promised to co-operate in the
creation of a common government, and in the opening of the river ports
to foreign trade so that this government might receive revenues for itB
maintenance. It was the same as promising them that some day or
other it would destroy itself with its own hands. It never fulfílled
those treaties, and the provinces becaiue convinced that attention to
their compact niust be obtained by main forcé.12

§7. Motiven qfnational interest which TIrquiza had to hring ábout the
fall of Sosas.—Sestoration qf the cause qf Basas by his suc-
cessors in the localgovernment qf Sueños Ayres.—Political object
for which Sueños Ayres separated itself from the Argentino Con-
federation.—Sy whom has the Jree navigation qf the rivers Leen
proclaimed, and who is interested in its preservation ?

This was the original object of the war -which was declared against
Buenos Ayres, in 1852, by General Urquiza, as the head of a pro-
vince which possessed fine ports for foreign trade, but which were
closed by the policy of Buenos Ayres. Having defeated General Rosas,
governor of that province, Urquiza convened all the others to agree on
the means of creating a general government, and of regulating the navi-
gation of the rivers, as the basis of the existence of that government.
That Convention was signed at San Nicolás de los Arroyos, in May,
1852, by all the governments of the provinces, including that of Buenos
Ayres.

But in June, 1852, Buenos Ayres, as was to be expected, protested
against this preparatory agreement for the constitution of a general
government. Then, and on this account, began the opposition, which is
still kept up, between Buenos Ayres and General Urquiza, as head of
the national government.

Notwithstanding that protestation from Buenos Ayres, and its
delibérate withdrawal or separation, the provinces created a general
government, relying on the principie of the authority of the majority.

They form, and really are, the national majority, since they
contain a million of Argentines ; while Buenos Ayres, with half its
population consisting of foreigners, scarcely contaius three hundred
thousand inhabitanta. As a national majority, the provinces could
certainly legislate for the dissentient minority. Buenos Ayres itself,
in giving birth to the Argentine revolution against Spain, in 1810, pro-
claimed the sovereignty qf the Argentine people, composed of the united
provinces. In every Federal or Unitarian Constitution, that people has
preserved its identity or individuality of sovereign state, under the ñame
of Argentine Sepublic or Confederation. Every one of its laws, either
local or general, is a proof that all the provinces formed one solé
nation. In the many treaties which that nation has made with foreign
nations, Buenos Ayres figures as an integral province of it. Its
standard, colours, seal, and coat-of-arms (all of which Buenos Ayres
continúes to use to this day) belong to the Argentine Jfepublic. To se-
cure to the only Argentine government the means of a fixed and re-
spected existence, and to prevent that the Custom-house revenues of
the provinces, and the exclusive right of representing them abroad,

13

Bhould fall again into the hands of the province of Buenos Ayres, it was
necessary to take away from that province the monopoly of river navi-
gation, kept up to the detriinent of foreign ships. General Urquiza, as
head of the provinces, abolished the colonial laws, which closed the
rivers, by a decree issued on the 28th of August, 1852. He promulgated
this decree in the exercise of the foreign political direction, which had
been entrusted to hini by all the provinces, including that qf Sueños
Ayres.

On this account, Buenos Ayres had to accept the opening of the
rivers ; but it hastened to reject the national authority of General
Urquiza, so as to prevent the formation of a national government.
Such was the object of its revolution of the llth of September, 1852.
It thus isolated itself from the other provinces, with the view of pre-
veuting them from creating a common government, just as it had done
on several other occasions.

"When it held the monopoly of foreign trade, and the revenues of
the customs, it left the other provinces without the resources necessary
to constitute a national government, whenever it chose to take an
isolated position. But, so that its isolation, on this occasion, might not
produce the same eífect, General Urquiza gave an additional extensión
to the treedom of river navigation (proclaimed on the 28th of August),
by a new decree, dated on the 3rd of October, 1852, by whicb he extended
the freedom of navigation to foreign ships of war and to mercantile
ships of every size.

§ 8. Sueños Ayres seems to adhere to free river navigation, the better
to combat it. Its isolation is an active hostility against that free-
dom.

As Buenos Ayres could not cióse the ports, which had been opened
by making use of the authority which it had itself delegated to General
Urquiza, it apparently adherecí to the opening of the ports of the pro-
vinces, by a provincial law which it passed on the 18th of October, 1852 ;
and in which it declared, as a principie, the e&pediency (not the right) of
navigation in the Kio Plata for foreign nations. It is known that the
JJio Plata was open to navigation from the time of the Spaniards.*

This law was a mask to combat with more security the freedom of
navigation, which was the death-blow of the monopoly of Buenos

* See the local law of Buenos Ayres, on the 18th of October, 1852, in the official
edition of its protestation against the free navigation of the rivera, and in the twoedi-
tions of the pamphlet of Señor Balcarce.14

Ayres. General Urquiza had proclaimed, not as mere " expediency,"
but as " a principie of public Argentine Constitutional right," the free-
dom of all rivera flowing into the Plata (26th article of the Federal
Constitution).

To render that principie irrevocable and perpetual, and that it
should not remam consigned in a law Hable to be suppressed by
another law, General Urquiza introduced it in international treaties,
which he signed with England, France, and the United States, in
July, 1853.

When Buenos Ayres saw that, by that means, the freedom of the
rivers became a real fact, it threw aside the mask of its law of October
upon the freedom of navigation ; and, hardly a year after having issued
it (on the 31st of August, 1853), it protested " before God aud men
" against the ¡Ilegal proceeding of General Urquiza, in the fact of his
" having made and concluded treaties of navigation, for the rivers of the
" interior, with the Ministers of England, France, and the United States."

As, however, the signing nations ratified them, notwitbstanding
that protestation, Buenos Ayres protested in another way against the
effects of the said treaties. It separated its river territory, from the
general authority of the nation which had signed them, by means of
the local constitution which it sanctioned on the llth of April, 1854.
That constitution is the code of its own system of anarchy, and a chal-
lenge thrown out against the peace of the Argentine provinces. This
is not because it may not possess a provincial constitution ; for in the
organization of the Argentine Bepublic, for internal government, each
province has a local constitution. Provinces are constituí e<l to maintain
the common constitution; but that of Buenos Ayres to destroy it.

By that local constitution, Buenos Ayres is, at the same time, " an
" integral part of the Argentine Republic, and a sovereign independent
" state." That is to say, that, to govern the nation, it is an integral part
of it; but, to obey it, it is an independent State.

The Argentine Confederation protested against that constitution, and
this latter part of it, by a solemn act of its national government, in
November, 1854.

§ 9. The mere isolafed position of Bwnos Ayres is an attaek against the order
and the liberty of the nation. For that purpose, it seek s the co-opera-
tion of forcign nations, whiie concealing that objeet to thetr vi-tc-
What is the RNMM for which t/tc institution of a national gorernmrnt
is unpopular in Sueños Ayres ?

Such is the meaning of the separatiou or isolntion in which Buenos
Ayres perseveres, with regard to the Argentine provinces. It is a
doublo protestation, effectively and practically, against the national
sovereignty, in virtue of which the roajority of Argentines have the
faculty of making laws and treaties, even in behalf of a dissentient
minority ; and against the principie of free navigation of the rivers,
which íb to people and civilizo the Argentine provinces, and the vast
and rich territorios of inland America.

To secure the triumph of such a bad policy ; to re-establish the an-
archial isolation of the provinces, which in other times gave it the power
of ruling them ; and partly to annul the treaties of free navigation, which
have carried off its ancient monopolies ; Buenos Ayres seeks for tho co-
operatiou of the foreign nations who have signed them, by deceiving
them with written and nominal promises of a liberal character which :s
contrary to its habitual interests. i

Let but Europe give it the co-operation after which it seeks, and it
will only aupport the disorder, and the opposition, of which its fellow-
countrymen on tho Kio Plata havo been the victims for so many years.

Those who pretend to explain the separatiou of Buenos Ayres from
its personal hatred for General Urquiza, naturally deny that interests
of commerce and navigation are the cause of that separation ; and they
give as a proof of it that Urquiza is specially detested by the elasses
of the population whioh havo leaat to do with commerce and navigation ;
such as the ludios, the youth, and the multitude in general. This is
nothing but sophistry.

The people of Buenos Ayres do not impoBe their opinions on the go-
vernment, but receive them from it. What is there called public
opinión, is official opinión.

The fair sex is a government instrument, since the time when Riva-
davia suppressed the municipalities, and distributed their attributions
between a military pólice and a female Corporation which called itself
a " Society of Beneficence," placed, like the pólice, under the Minister
of the Interior.

The local government, which receives now two millions less of
Oustom-house dues, and which can no longer legislate for commerce,
which, for the first time, passes beyond its port, cannot but be sensitive
at such a loes.10

And as sucb a power and revenues, now pasaed into the hands of
the whole nation, have bsMI for so many years under tho management
of Buenos Ayres as if they belonged to it, the generation which lias
grown up aceustomed to such nn irregularity, considera the natural
withdrawal of such national property l'rom Buenos Ayres, to constitute
therewíth a government and a treasury for the whole nation, as a
humiliation and a spoliation inflicted on its proviuco.

For this reaaou it is very easy for anv government in Buenos Ayres,
■which does uot choose to act in good faith, to inanage to render odious
iu the eyes of the local populatiou, any one who atteinpts to créate a
government for tho nation, whoever that man raay be, even if he be a
Porteño (nativo of the port, " par eicellence," i. e., Buenos Ayres),
as hnppened to Kivadavia.

§ 10.   Por tehat reason ItN  tho Uritish rreditnrs nf   tke   Ctovernmcnt of
'liuenox Ayres, and the foreign commerve cstabh^hed in that port,
opposed the ncw sy.item< of th<- Confederation $
The sanie reasons for which BuenoB Aj res resisted the policy of Ge-
neral Urquiza, influer.ee also the friends of Buenos Ayres who shared
in the monopolios which that province has lost by the work of the man
who has given to the nation a general government and a direct com-
merce.

The chicf parties among them are the European merchants who
have established firma in the port of Buenos Ayrea, and the British
creditors of the local treasury of that province. Nothing is more eaay
of eomprehension than the opposition of such persona to the new order
of thiugs, which has deprived them of such advantages, and to the pro-
moter of the new aituation. For it has takeu away from Buenos Ayres
the nionopoly of the revenues of the Custom-house, with which that pro-
vince paid the intereat of its local debt. It has also taken away from
the ogenciea of consignment, at Buenos Ayres, half their trade, which
gocs now directly to the newly-opeued Argentino porta.

For such persona, naturally, TJrquiza must be a wicked ruler, the
cnemy both of civilization and of Buenos Ayres.

The British debt of that province is local and municipal, owing to
the waut of foresight of the lenders, who, at the time when the loan
waa nt.gotiated, did not take the care of ascertuining clearly tbe indi-
viduality of their debtor. If at first their error niight be excused from
want of information on the aituation of the country, this no louger
holds good at present, if it is intended to make the debt altogether a

17

local one, when it might be changed into a national debt. The pro-
vince of Buenos Ayres contracted that debt in 1824, when there was
no sort of national government. Later, in the month of December of
the same year, a constitueut Congreas was convened.

Buenos Ayres borrowed in virtue of a local law, and for local pur-
poses, which are mentioned in that very law ; 'such as, to provide tho
city with water fit to drink—to construct a port for Buenos Ayres
—to form in the south of the province some colonial settlement, &c.
The very bonds, in their wording, prove the provincial character of
that debt, and the Times only re-produces it in calling the scrip
of that debt " Buenos Ayrian Bonds," and not " Argentino Bonds ;"
just as it speaks of " Spanish Bonds" for those of that nation, and
uot of " Madrid Bonds ;" or of " Brazilian Bonds," and not of " Bonds
of Bio Janeiro ;" or again, of " Chilian Bonds" and not of " Bonds of
Santiago."

However local that debt was, it was paid with the revenues which
belonged to all the Argentine provinces, when Buenos Ayres kept
for itself the whole of their custom-house revenue, by means of the
monopoly of direct foreign trade.

In opposition to this, it is objected that Buenos Ayres pays better
at the present time, when it stands isolated, than before, when it was
united to the other provinces and held the monopoly of their foreign
trade.      From  that  fact   some   economista  conclude   that Buenos
Ayres has increased its   public revenue, now that it comes from
two hundred and fifty-thousand inhabitants ;   while before,  it was
produced by a million and a-balf.    It is exactly as if it was said
of a gambler, that he was very rich, because he ia  seen to put
down a great deal of gold on the table.    The debt of Buenos Ayres
is now changed into an ardent political game, in which Buenos Ayres
has staked its ancient power, its pride of former metrópolis, and all its
local interest of influence and vanity.   To recover the ascendaney
which it has lost, with regard to the nation, it would give its life-blood.
This would be a dead loas for those who would receive it; because
they would lose their debtor, before he had cancelled his debt. Buenos
Ayres thinks to be able to recover the management of the Argentine
diplomacy, by dint of the gold which it gives to its British creditors.
But   to raiae thia gold, it borrows—that is to  say,   it circuíate»
" assignats."     It pays the interest of one debt with another debt,
and not with actual revenues.    It increase8 its debt  in the same
proportion as its revenues diminish.     The British creditors do not
understand this, because the paper money of Buenos Ayres keeps up its
valué in spite of the new issue.    They do not remark that the paper
money does not fínd its way to the London exchange ;  but remaina in

c1S

the streets of Buenos Ayres. It is the paper nioney of a province
where the people have not touched a dollar of silver for the last two
generations, which have grown up in the midst of paper money
payments. The butcher, the workman, the man iu the streets, who hold
such paper, never inquire if tlie government revenues, whieh serve as a
guarantee for it, increase or diminish ; and only begin to be aware of
it when bankruptcy shows its terrible aspect.

§ 11. The former ascendancy of Sueños Ayres cannot be restored.—The Euro-
pean governments have contributed to rcmove it, by negociating the
opening of all the Argentine ports.—Permanent opposition, crealed by
the treaties offree navigation, beiween the foreign merchants of Sueños
Ayres and their governments.—-The only tcay qf overcoming that
difficulty.

Buenos Ayres, it» British creditors and its foreign consignees of all
countries (whose interests are common with it, to a certain extent,)
hope and labour to re-establish, if not in whole at least iu part, the
situation which gave for forty years, to Buenos Ayres, the exclusive en-
joyment of foreign commeree and the Custom-house revenue of the
fourteen Argentine provinces. In this hope, the government itself of
Buenos Ayres induces them to present petitions, to obtain from the
British government an indirect support for the isolated position as-
sumed by Buenos Ayres as an hostile tactic against the formation of
any national government. And the most singular part of this is, that
they invoke the interests of peace, to restore a state of things which, as
has been shown previously, consisted in anarchy and civil war, turned to
account, and as a means of government, on the part of Buenos Ayres.

Is such a scope practicable ? And can that ever be a solution of the
question which divides Buenos Ayres from the other Argentine pro-
vinces P Ought foreign powers to support such an intention ? Could
they allow, or tolérate even, such a solution ? No, fortunately ; for the
first obstacles thereto are the very interest and acts of those foreign
powers.

On the very day that the governments of England, Franee, and
the United States have signed the treaties of the free navigation of the
rivers flowing into the Plata, they have tbemselves snatched from the
hands of Buenos Ayres the monopolies of revenue and power, whicu
that proviuce beld owing to the closing of the other Argentine ports ;

1»

and as those treaties are perpetual, those very governments have made
the loss of the monopolies irrevocable for Buenos Ayres.

From the ratification of those treaties, the object of British policy
in the Plata is in contradiction with that of the British merchants and
creditors of Buenos Ayres. The same has happened, for the policy of
France and the United States, in the Plata. The native and foreign
population of Buenos Ayres, as well as the British bondholders, com-
plain in vain of General TJrquiza. He is not the only servant of the
general interest of his country. For there are also to be found, as such,
the Foreign Office, the cabinet of the Tuilleries, and the government of
"Washington, who are the parties that have diminished the Custom-
house revenue of Buenos Ayres, the consignments of its merchants,
the traffic of its port, and the guarantee of its British creditors.

The disagreement will only be the greater, from day to day, as the
treaties of free navigation produce all their effeets in behalf of the ge-
neral interest of which those treaties are the expression.

The conflict, then, is limited to the prívate interest of a commercial
market, in opposition to the general commeree of that same place, and
of many other places which have still to be developed. By signing
the treaties of free navigation, the governments of England, France, and
the United States, have already decided in favour of general interest.
There is no longer the possibility to hesitate. If, instead of going on
in that way, they wish to listen to the complaints of the merchants im-
mediately interested in the monopolies of Buenos Ayres, they will be
compelled to carry out two policies diametrically opposed to each other,
which would satisfy neither party.

§ 12. The only means to satisfy the foreign merchants of Sueños Ayres, are to
bréale the treaties and to cióse the Argentine ports.—The foreign
interests, which are supposcd to lie at Sueños Ayres, lie on the contrary
in the Corfederation.

If it be desired to render a complete service to the foreign subjeets
established at Buenos Ayres, there is but one way ; namely, to break
the treaties of free river navigation, and to cióse thus again the Argen-
tine ports, to restore the laws of the Spanish Indies, which gave no
other port to all those provinces than that of Buenos Ayres.

It is only thus that the foreign merchants and creditors» of Buenos
Ayres can be seen satisíied.

But, as such a solution is impossible, there is but one legitímate wav
of quieting the complaints which are produced by the principie of20

liberty, guaranteed by those treaties. That way consista in subordi-
nating prívate interests to general interest, by incorporating the in-
terost of Buenos Ayres with the general interest of the Argentina
oation.

The following objection, however, is made against this proposal:—
" Our chief interests lie in Buenos Ayres, and not in the Confedera-
" tion. "We have great interests, and a large number of subjects, in
" Buenos Ayres," will say, for instance, the governments of England
and Trance.

However, the assertion is not exact. The greater part of those in-
terests are in reality to be found in the Confederation, of whose pro-
vinces Buenos Ayres continúes, even now, to be an intermedíate market,
as it ever was ; owing to the working of the colonial laws, but not by ita
geographical position. Those who make that objection, take the port for
the market. Buenos Ayres was the port of the fourteen provinces be-
fore the present time. Its commercial houses made the purchases and
sules of all the provinces, and its produce, in going out of the country
took the ñame of the port of exportation.

Thus, in England, " Buenos Ayres hides and copper " are spoken of,
just as are quoted in the Plata, " Iiinen webs and hardware, of Liver-
'" pool."

If this had not been the case, Buenos Ayres would not have pro-
tested against the treaties which open the ports of the interior, and
would itself have opened them forty years ago. Since those treaties
have taken away from Buenos Ayres the privilege of calling itself the
Porteño, or Port City, " par excellence," the governments which have
signed them have no other way of compenBating their subjects esta-
blished in Buenos Ayres, for the losses which free trade has made them
suffer, than to give them an interest in the well-underatood profits of
free trade itself.

Instead of blockading the Argentino ports, as it formerly did,
Buenos Ayres has another means of re-establishing its ancient com-
mercial action relatively to the other provinces ; and that is to construct
a railway which would connect it with them much more efFectively than
river steamers.

Instead of pretending that the Custom-house revenue of the fourteen
provinces should return to the management of Buenos Ayres, so that it
may be able to pay its British debt, it would be better to place the debt
to the account of the nation, with whom are, and will more and more
be found fhe revenues which served as a guarantee for contracting that
debt. Let the debt be considered to lie where happen to be the re-
venues which actcd for it as a ba&is, instead of drawiug the revenue of

21

a whole nation to the point where can only be found the debt of a single
province.

How is this to be done ? Liet Buenos Ayres return with its debt to
the main body of the nation, and then its creditors will hold as debtors
a mi Ilion and a half of inhabitants who possess the richest territory of
South America, instead of being, as at present, the creditors of two
hundred and fifty thousand citizens who have placed themselves in a
permanently hostile position relatively to the whole world.

§ 13. The restoration of the National unity of the Argentine Sepublic,
includes the solu tion of all the points in question. This solution is
practicable.— Unity is ancient, while división is but recent.—For the
present a relative or partial unity is sufficient.

The " unity of the Argentine nation" is then the only sensible
solution of all the difficulties which the foreign commerce of Buenos
Ayres now endures and will continué to endure.

But that such a unity might have its proper effect, it would
be necessary that it should be effected by subordinating the mouth of
the Plata to the control of the countries situated on its tributary rivera,
which contain the greater number of citizens and has consequently the
right of imposing laws on the minority. Thus, justice as well as interest
prescribe that solution. As the freedom of river navigation is the
principie which maintains the existence of the Argentine govemment,
it is evident that foreign nations, being interested in extending their
commerce into the interior of America by means of that principie,
ought to concur to the equitable placing of the general authority of those
countries in the hands of those who need the development of commerce
and navigation, as an indispensable condition of existence. That
solution is not impracticable. The restoration of Argentine unity, or
the unión of Buenos Ayres with the Confederation, is not a paradox :
far from this; for it is a fact which has existed for ages. What is a
complete novelty, is the división; and a proof that that división is
artificial, is the invincible tendency of both parta to come together
again as tbey ever were. All will depend on the manner and means
by which the re-union will become effected for the present. It should
not be inferred that it is completely impossible, because it cannot
be effected in a complete and absolute way. The unión will become
practicable, if it is limited for the present to the centralising of a few22

interests whicb are essential for the nationality of the country, leaving
the rest to the gradual working of futuro policy. Providecl the nation
be one and the same, and provided it has " one only government"
for those who come from abroad, it matters littlo whether its interna!
Constitutiou leaves more or less latitude to the government of Bueno»
Ayres. Such a soiution is not unprecedented in the history of that
very country. In 1825, and on all the occasions on which the provinces
have led a united existence in the matter of external relations, that
unión has been relative, and such as we have just proposed.

§ 14.    The  independence of Sueños Ayres would not be a soiution but a
more serious complicación.

The fact is, that besides such a soiution, there is no other. The
independence of Buenos Ayres would not be a soiution, but, on
the contrary, an additional complication. It would be to render
perpetual the struggle which at present may be temporary. To form
for Buenos Ayres an independent position, would be to give it a atrong-
hold wherefrom to carry on hostilities, with all impunity, against the
development of the ports and markets which now compete with its own,
and which formerly were accessory to it. It would be to créate at the
mouth of the Plata a permanent fortress against the free navigation of
the rivers of the extensive and rich countries to he found inland
and bordering the banks of the large and numerous tributary streams of
that mighty river. And if the island of Martin García, which on
account of its position at the entrance of those rivers, is called " the
lock of the Plata gates," was left under the authority of Buenos Ayres,
it would be like placing again the newly liberated river navigation
under the care of its former gaolor, who has been constrained to
surrender it. The key of the Confederation, which is Martin García'»
island, in accordance with the fcreaties of July, 1853, on the free naviga-
tion of rivers, ought to be plaoed in the hands of those who reside
inland, like the key of every dwelling ; and not to be entrusted to thoBe
who are outside, having an interest in locking up their rivals. No
sort of right is opposed to this, niñee the Island of Martin García
belóngs to the " Argentine liepublic," and not to the Argentino
province of Buenos Ayres ; and the Foreign Office holds a demonstra-
tion of this truth, in the Memorándum written on the Falkland Archi-
pelago, in 1832, by Dr. Alcina, who ia the present goveraor of Buenos
Ayres.

23

But as Buenos Ayres itself does not demaiid such au independence,
to concede it would be to grant it what it does not ask : and the olli-
tñous creators of a new State would be precisely the foreign pmvers
most interested in avoiding it. Buenos Ayres would accept absoluto
independence in one case only ; namely, when it found itself couquered
by the nation and obliged to obey its authority. Por the present, the
independence which it desires would be a kind of loop-hole out of
which it could escape its adversarles to renew its attack at pleasure.

The creation of two petty States at the mouth of the Plata, such
as Buenos Ayres and Montevideo, is the surrender to Braril of the keys
of the navigation of its tributarles, in the same way that it already
holds those of the Amazon, Under the ñame of an independent State,
Buenos Ayres would beeome a Brazilian province.

Urquiza is not the cause of this conílict, ñor is his person the
obstacle to the unión betweeu Buenos Ayres and the other provinces.
His removal from power would not be a soiution of the question.
"Were an ángel from heaven to succeed him in power and to give to the
Argentine Provinces what they require and desire most, namely, a
national government of their own immediate creation and direct foreign
commerce for all their river ports, Buenos Ayres would see in the
ángel himself an obstacle, because he would give to the nation a govern-
ment, a commerce and a revenue, which were in the hands of Buenos
Ayres, when the nation e.xisted without a government of its own.

Thus, the real obstacle, in the eyes of Buenos Ayres, is the nation
itself, and the right of that nation to administer its government and. its
interests by the médium of all the provinces united, and not by means
of only one of its px-ovinces,

Buenos Ayres is in the position of a guardián who has managed for
many years, as if it was his own, the fortune of wards placed under his
care. The guardián and his sons, who are aecustomed to holding,
enjoying and displaying the fortune of others, have begun to think
themselves more rich than they really are, and strangers have ended in
considering them as the owners of what they administered.

As the day ofreckoning arrives, and as he has to restore to its
rightful owners the said patrimony, the guardián tries to put ofF the
painfnl restoration, and a quarrel breaks out in the house. As there
are no judges to decide the contests between the provinces of the same
country, they have been obliged to do what nations do in such cases ;
they have constituted themselves as judges, and have obtained the
accounts by main forcé. The guardián and his family have complained
of the means used and of the manner of asking. However, that rnanner
is not the most sensitive wound, but the fact of having to restore
the property.   Not being able to complain of the object of the demand24

they compJaiu of its form. But what formula cannot be harsh
when requesting the abandonment of an enjoyment.

That restitution has also appeared a humiliation inflicted on
the guardián, in the eyes of those who had taken him for the owner of
the property of his wards. The British creditors of Buenos Ayres are
found among those deceived. They had lent to the guardián a million
Bterling, blinded by a yearly revenue amounting to an equal sum, which
they saw received. They forgot to ascertain whether that revenue was
the borrower's own, or belonged to any body else. It is ouly now that
they know that the annual revenue of a million sterliug, on the strength
of which they lent their money, goes off aloug with the Custom-house
and commerce into the hands of the provinces, who never received that
loan, and are the real owners of the revenue on the faith of which it
was effected. Then, to put off the settlenient of accounts, so that the
guardián may be able to pay his debts, he receives assistance in main-
taining that the wards (i. e. the provinces) are still too young and
ignorant to manage their own property, and that the guardianship of
Buenos Ayres ought to continué.

!

§ 15.    The present organization of the Confederation is indestructible.—It does

not lie in the writtcn constitution.-—It is to be found in the treaties r
of free navigation of the rivers.—These conslitute the real Argentine
organization.—Any disorder could not restore lo Sueños Ayres its
former ascendancy.

Nevertbeless, the guardianship is ended, and for ever, because
foreign powers have contributed to its having an irrevocable termina-
tion, by signing the treaties of free navigation of rivera to forward
general intercsts.

These treaties are the masterwork of General TJrquiza. That
monument will outlive his own existence, as an obstacle to the vain
aspirations of Buenos Ayres to destroy it.

The organization which Urquiza has given to the Argentine Con-
federation is not ephemeral, as is believed by the crowd which knows
not'how to reflect or observe. That organization is not to be found in
the written constitution; it lies in the treaties of free navigation of
the rivers, which he has signed with the great nations for an indefinita
period. Those treaties are the real new constitution of the Confedera-
tion, just as the former was the laws of the Indies abrogated by them,
and which constituted it previously to the advantage of the supreinacy
of Buenos Ayres.   Those treaties of free river navigation, which are a

derogation to the colonial laws, iu withdrawing from Buenos Ayres a
great portion of foreign commerce, Custom-house revenues and diplo-
matic power, previously monopolised by that province, and placing it
into the hands of the provinces at large, have mnde a perpetual and radi-
cal change in the eeonomical and political condition of the whole country ;
that is to say, in its normal and eft'ective constitution, whatever may
be said of its written constitution. By such a dignified way, without
any humiliating protectorate, the Argentine diplomacy bas succeeded
in having Burope and America as guarantees for ever, in the ñame of
universal interests, of the existence of the new system of the Argentine
Confederation.

All the efforts of Buenos Ayres to destroy that system will be vain
and useless. The provinces will no longer replace in its hands their
government and their revenues, any more than they will restore them
to the government of Madrid. Buenos Ayres now performs the part
which Spain took in the war of Independence. It will lose its time and
money in attempting to restore a domination for ever ended by the
mere forcé of events.

Anarchy can again exist in the provinces, especially if care is taken
to foment and encourage it; but the ascendancy of Buenos Ayres will
not return for all that. When the provinces were iBolated and block-
aded, (that is to say, deprived of all direct foreign commerce,) their
anarchy brought the whole national power into the hands of Buenos
Ayres, because, as the only port of all the provinces at that time, it
took from them, owing to that advantage, the whole of tbe Custom-
house revenue, and kept it in virtue of the state of mutual isolation.
But now that the provinces have experienced what they are capable of,
and what valué they acquire when constituted as a national Corporation,
and have become acquainted with and enjoy direct foreign trade, their
anarchy would produce no sort of profit to Buenos Ayres ; because, iu
spite of any political disorder, commerce, along with the Custom-house
revenue which it produces, would always find its way into the new ports,
taking advantage of tbe water carriage which takes it to its final destina-
tion, and would not stop at Buenos Ayres as formerly.

§ 16.    To refute to achnowledge reforma, made in the interest of civiliza tio»,
is to encourage in America the oíd prejudices against Hurope.

If the Buenos Ayrians may have some excuse for opposing the man
who has created the new order of things, on account of his having
deprived them of usurped advantages ;  the foreign traders and theBritish creditors of Buenos Ayres can have none, wlien they pretend
that Urquiza is a leader without worth. When the presa and political
■worid in Europe maltes itself the echo of such injustice, they deeply
injure their own interests in the New World. Europe and foreign
nations have never received, from any South-A merican leader, the
services which Q-eneral Urquiza has rendered to the cause of its com-
merce in the New "World, and to that of civilization at large. San
Martin, Bolivar and others, created the independence of South
America; bnt they left it under the rule of the colonial " laws of
" the Indies," which struck independence with sterility. The first man
who undertook to derógate from these laws, for the salte of the chief
interests of Europe in South America—such as navigation, comiuerce,
freedom of worship, immigration, and the civil rights of foreigners
—is General Urquiza. Other statesmen had introdnced reforms on
those subjects. Those which he has carried out have been declared
as the fundamental laws of the Confederation and inserted iu the
Constitution of the country. By such an act, General Urquiza has
introduced a change, in South American public law, equal in importance
to that made by its independence. He has neither written ñor
proclaimed it hypocritically. He was the very first to seek aud find
guarantees to make it irrevocable, by siguing with foreign powers
treaties which make a. " completo right" of their subjects whatever
civil guarantees are granted by the Constitution to the inhabitants of
the country. Those treaties exist as a fací, and are not mere newspaper
Bcheines. In the space of six years, General Urquiza has signed more
treaties of this kiud, than the whole of Spanish Ameriea in ten
years' time. For forty years Buenos Ayres held in hand the exterior
policy of the provinces, and in the whole of that period it only signed
one single treaty of navigation and commerce. This was the treaty
made with England in 1825. By that treaty it secures its privileges
by appearing to serve commercial freedom. For, while the first article
opened the trade of the Argentino provinces to England, the second
article admitted its ships only in the ports qualified by the laws of the
country for the admission of foreign flags ; and those laws were
precisely the colonial " laws of the Indies." It is notorious that those
laws closed all Argentine ports to foreign trade, with the exception of
Buenos Ayres ; so that the commercial freedom granted to England
was an illusion. England could trade freely with the whole Argentine
Confederation, provided it did not do so by means of the navigation of
the rivers. And as the country has no other ways of inland intercourse
than its rivers, the closing them to foreign ships made all foreign trade
impossible with any other point than Buenos Ayres ; in other words,
it reduced European commerce  in those eouutries to a tenth part

27

of what it might be, in proportion to the population, and to the
extent and richuess of its soil.

General Urquiza, in opening all the Argentine river ports to
England and the world, by the treaties of 1853, has turned into
a reality the nominal freedom which Buenos Ayres had granted to
European commerce. To rei'use to recognize such a merit in General
Urquiza, is to encourage the policy of those who have governed South
America with the principies and spirit of Dr. Francia, of General
Uopez in Paraguay, of General Rosas in Buenos Ayres, of General
Belza in Bolivia, of General Monagas in Venezuela, &c.

§ 17.    A tvay of opposing the free navigation of the rivers, is to deny their
navigahleness.

Another way used to diminish the importance of the service rendered
to European nations by General Urquiza, has been to represent the
proclaimed freedom of river navigation as useless to them, by spreading
the report that the tributary streams of the Plata are not navigable.
This is being done at present by the Buenos Ayrians and those friends
of theirs in Europe who are interested in their monopolies. It is,
however, too late. Buenos Ayres itself has published the best docu-
mentary evidence of the navigableness of those rivers, during the time
that it boasted of them as its patrimony. Becent explorations, and
the river-charts given to the public by the British Admiralty and
by the Washington government, leave not the least doubt on the
fact that the navigation of those rivers is not only possible, but
also very eaay and of great extent, and is an immense acquisition
for the commerce of the world.

The best additional answer to those who denj' the navigableness
of the tributary rivers of the Plata, would be that afforded by the
fact of its actual operation. " El Bosario," a town of 24,000
inhabitants at present, and the largest of the whole Confederation,
after Buenos Ayres, has grown up, in six years' time, owiug exclu-
sively to the freedom of river navigation, which the monopolista
represent as impracticable because it is hateful to them. Proper self-
respect prevents us from reprinting the insults and epithets bestowed
by the British Packet, a newspaper of Buenos Ayres, which is an
organ of its commerce, in an article entitled " Stupendous Infamy,"28

against the treaties of river navigation and against its negociators,
Sir Charles Hotham and the Chevalier de Saint G-eorges; and published
as the very first notice which carne to Buenos Ayres of the treaty being
concluded.*

If the ocean ships never had passed, previously to that time, beyond
the island of Martin Garcia, it was not because the tributary rivers of
the Plata (at the entrance of which the island is placed) were not na-
vigable for such ships ; but because the Spanish colonial laws, which
closed them against every foreign fiag, obliged them to stop at Buenos
Ayres or Montevideo, at the entrance of the Plata. Those laws
characterised as an offence the act of going beyond those privileged
porta, and punished with conjiscation the foreign ship which so passed
on. TJnder such a legislation as this, the monopolist commerce of
Buenos Ayres was ereated and organised.

What was the mere effect of a law, is now attributed to the nature
and geographical position of Buenos Ayres. That position, however,
did not prevent the navigation of the Plata from being called, at the
beginníng of this century, " the hell of navigators," by the Spanish
Hailors, who had begun to undertake it. The want of experience, which
made the approach of the coast of Buenos Ayres so terrible, is what
makes, at present, against the navigation of the Paraná. But the
waters which have been the scene of the battles of Obligado and of
Tonelero, between fleets which were able to manceuvre just as well as in
the open sea. will be shortly as well known and as frequented by foreign
fl&gs as the waters of the Plata itself.

§ 18.    The only j'uit and uteful óbject of policy for foreign potvers in thr
Plata.

As soon as the motive which keeps Buenos Ayres separated
from the rest of the Confederation is known, and that it is also known
that that motive is not a personal one, except in so far that General
Urquiza represents an order of things which has put an end to the
hateful monopolios which Buenos Ayres kept up for forty years ; when
it is known, moreover, that that separation is a tactic which Buenos
Ayres always adopted to prevent the creation of a Nacional govern-

• See the JJriti.sk Paeket of Buenos Ayres, August the 6th, 1853.

29

ment, so as to continué to handle the attributions and revenues of that
national power, which it succeeded in doing for forty years; and when
it is also known what was the use made by Buenos Ayres of that
authority, to prevent the navigation of the rivers by foreign nations, so
that the direct foreign trade of the fourteen provinces should be carried
on by its own port only, and to take exclusively for itself the custom-
house revenue of all the others ; it is easy to know for the support of
what parfcy ought to be made to work the mediations, interventions and
even the neutrality of foreign governments in the Rio de la Plata.

To be useful and just, their policy ought to have no other object
than to induce Buenos Ayres, directly or indirectly, to abandon its iso-
lated position ; that is to say, first, that it should cease to oppose the
institution of a national government, of which great need exists for the
maintenance of peace in the provinces ; secondly, that it should recog-
nise and respect the sovereignty of the Argentine nation as a superior
authority to its provincial government, conformably to the principie of
authority which Buenos Ayres itself proclaimed, in the ñame of the
people of the United Provinces, at the time of the destruction of
the authority of Spain in 1810; thirdly, that it should adhere to,
and accept, the treaties which, in the exercise of that authority, have
been signed by the majority of the nation to make irrevocable and
perpetual the principie of the free navigation of the rivers, by means
of which all Argentine ports can henceforward carry on direct trade
with foreign ports, which formerly was carried on exclusively by Buenos
Ayres, thanks to the hateful closing of the rivers.

It is only thus, that the exertions of European governments can have
for result the re-establishment of the integrity of the Argentine nation,
in which is contained the solution of all the internal and external
questions of that country.

If, on the contrary, the governments of Europe, instead of inducing
Buenos Ayres to give to the nation what belongs to it, pretend to
induce the nation to leave things as they are—that is to say, to
leave in the possession of Buenos Ayres what belongs to all the
Provinces—the result of their efforts will be, if they succeed,
the final división of the Argentine Jtepublic into two rival nations :
namely, Buenos Ayres and the Confederation. The rivalry of interests,
which has occasioned the question, would keep up the hostilities, after
the división was sanctioned ; and civil war, which before was an acci-
dent, would remain organised in institutións of a morbid character.

If the origin of the present división lay in personal rivalry, by
dividing the parties into two independent States, peace would be
cstablished.     But the división of Buenos Ayres from the other Pro-30

vincos has its source in the state of things, instead of the choice
of persons. It is a rivalry of localities and not of individuáis. That i»
the renson why men succeed each other, but the rivalry remanís. Thus
has Alcina, when placed in the position of Bosas, defended the same
cause as Bosas : namely, the propensity of the oíd " port" to absorb
the vitality of the whole nation. The remedy for the evil does not
consist in áividing what was always united ; but in re-organising unión
by distributing equally, between the two parties, the benefits of the
wealth and power which have been monopolised by only one of them.

Happily, the remedy of the evil is practicable, because the evil does
not exist in the physical but in the artificial order of things which the
Spanish colonial laws bestowed upon the interests of different localities
of the country. What has been the work of laws and of policy can be
corrected by them.

The Argentino contest and división lies between the interests of the
countries situated at the mouth of the Plata, and the interests of
the countries situated along its tributary rivera. The Spanish colonial
laws created that contest. By giving to the former, to the exclusión of
the latter, the whole enjoyment of direct commerce with Europe, which
was the source, for these desert countries, of their population, their
wealth and their agriculture; the " laws of the Indies" left there the
germs of their present contests. To créate that inequality, it was suffi-
cient for the Spanish laws to cióse the river ports of the interior
against foreign trade, and to except from the prohibition Buenos
Ayres and 1| ontevideo, situated at the mouth of the Plata.

Spain did not make such laws for this colony, with the object
of creating such a difficulty, but to be able to monopolise herself
its commerce, and to exelude from it the other nations of Europe.
Henee, however, aróse the supremacy of the ports of Montevideo and
of Buenos Ayres over those of the Provinces, situated in the interior of
the country tbrough which flow the tributary rivers of the Plata,
namely : the Paraná, and the Uraquay.

But the treaties of free river navigation derogating to the "laws of
the Indies," and giving to all the Argentine ports, in an equal propor-
tion, all the enjoyments of direct free trade with all the world, have
served the interests of the provinces which were excluded from that
trade, and have annoyed the countries at the mouth of the Plata, which
carried on this monopoly. Henee, the opposition of Buenos Ayres to
to the treaties against which it protests, and the tacit opposition of
Montevideo to these same treaties, to which she has refused to this^day
to become a party.

Forwarding thus the cause of justice in the distributiou of wealth

31

and power, these treaties have prepared the only possible solution of
the question which divides the Argentine countries. At present, there
is only need of developing their consequences, and, far from leaving
Buenos Ayres and Montevideo out of the range of these treaties, as
they hold themselves for the present, they ought to be induced to ac-
cept them as the only way of reconciling rival interests.

The independence of Buenos Ayres would not cause its commercial
and political rivalry to cease. Thanks to its independence, it would
develope it with more energy ; and then there would be less facility
to conciliate its interest with that of the provinces, on account of that
very independence; because it is much more easy to unite the
interests of two rival provinces, than those of two independent
nations placed in an antagonistic position. The independence of
Buenos Ayres would render irremediable the evil of its división
from the other provinces ; just as is the case with Monte-
video, the absoluto independence of which, with regard to the Argen-
tino Bepublic renders incurable its commercial antagonism towards
the provinces of that Bepublic ; for no treaty has been made, or can
ever be made which will conciliate the opposing interests of its port
with those of the Argentine river ports, as a common Constitution
could have done.

§ 19.    The basis of a treaty offered by Sueños Ayres  to the Minister of the
United States, as a  mediator, are not bases of unión, but of per-

manent división.

These bases deserve to be reproduced here textually, as the best
corroborating document of the truth which we have set down in this
pamphlet.    They are as follows :—

1. Each of the contracting parties recognises " national integrity"
as the principal object of all arrangement; that is to say, the definitive
unión of the fourteen Argentine Provinces under a common govern-
ment.

2. To facilítate and bring within reach the attainment ofthat object,
the present President of the Confederation will, as soon as the present
bases are signed, make the patriotic sacrifíce of withdrawing completely,
and for six years at least, from political life ; the actual respective order
remaining, in other regards, as it is both in Buenos Ayres and in the Con-
federation ; but it being unuerstood that the statu quo created by the
treaties of 1854 and 1855, reuiains re-established in all its parts.

3. The present constitution of the confederation shallbe levisedand
inodified after the delay which it establishes ; that is to say, after the
lsL of May, 1863 , and as soon as the state or order of things will be32

then eatablished, the statu quo, mentioned iu basis the second, shall
cease.

4. The deputies of Buenos Ayres shall concur in the revisión of the
actual constitution, by doing it in the form and place which the two
parties shall agree upon by means of a convention ad hoc, which must
be made six months before the lst of May, 1863.

5. The said statu quo of 1854 and 1855, shall be guaranteed by the
government of tho United States ; at any ra te with regard to the part
relating to commercial franchises and liberties.

(Signed) Dalmacio Velez Sabseield.*

• These bases having been objeoted to by tho Miniater of the United States, as a
mediator, Buenos Ayres has withdrawn them, and has replaced them all by the
folloMÍng : —

" As soon as General Urquiza withdraws from public Ufe the State of Buenos
Ayres will concur to form a national convention, to revise the constitution of the Ar-
gentino confederation of May the lst, 1853, so aa to join itself again to the other
Argentino provinces undor a common law."

As the confederation owes, at present, its public existence to General Urquiza,
and aa he is the man best able to maintain the order of things which it has constituted
under his influence, the retirement of that chief would have as a natural result, the to-
turn of the provinces to their former State of mutual isolation and decomposition.
And as that is exactly what Buenos Ayres longs for, the basis which it has presented
on the lOth of August (namely, the withdrawal of General Urquiza) will not fail to
bring about the result for which it seeks ; in other words, the decomposition of the
national government.

According to that, this proposal is equivalent to an evasión or total abandonment
of any thought of unión for the present.

In fact, if the Argentino provinces consented to exelude from the administration
of their public affairs the man who has freed them from the domination of Rosas,
and who has given them a constitution, a free commerce with Europo, International
treaties, and direct and regular diplomatie relation», the world might justly think that
the Argentinos were wanting in right feeling, and that they are the most disloyal and
unfortunate peo pie on earth.

The same opinión would not be formed, if, on the contrary, a demand was made
to sepárate Dr. Alcina and his enlourage from the Buenos Ayrian administration, as
a means of re- establishing the unity of the nat ion.

The Argentino Bepublic owes no sort of known service to Dr. Alcina. All his
patriotism consists in loving the province of Bueno» Ayres.

In anything but a patriotic spirit, Dr. Alcina has divided the Bepublic by iso-
lating Buenos Ayres, since the revolution of September the llth, 1852 ; and nothing
would be more natural than to remove from power the author of that separation, as
the best means of re-establishing the unión which he has destroyed.

The removal of Dr. Alcina would leave only a province without its present head ;
while that of Urquiza would deprive of their Governor thirteen provinces, or rather
a whole nation.

The retirement of Alcina would leave a bad cause without a chief, since Alcina
ropresent» now the true cause of Rosas, which  consista  essentially  in prevent-

33

A trealy on such bases would not be n solution of the queation
which divides Buenos Ayres from the rest of the provinces. It would
aát either be t.he means of preparing that solution. It would be. on
the coiitrary, the moans of putting it off; or, at any rate, to solve tho
qüeation by tho dismomberment of the country, and not by its uuion

Nueh a treaty would be a proinise of unión for the future (hasis tho
lst), with the coudition of reniaining separated for the preiieut (ham*
tho 2ud).

As in all tho treaties of the. kind made previously between Buenos
Ayres and the province», unión was the ostensible object, but ditunian
the real MM¡ in view.

The treaty recently proposed is the expression of the traditioual
poliey of Buenos Ayres, for tho last forty ycars, towards the Argentine
provinces.    It is the resume of the treaties of 1822, 1831, 1854, and
1855.   In all these domestic oompaets or eouventions, eonoluded on the
proposal of Buenos Ayres as a . means of solviug the same (JUMlíon as
that debated al present (which is as oíd as the revolution againsf Hjiaiu).
t he object was to divide the Republic into two parties ; namely, thal of
Buenos Ayres, on one side, and that of the provinces on the other.
The former was to povern, and the latter was to accept what the former
<lid without its participation.    Buenos Ayres perforined the iirt-t part
for forty years ; the provinces, and that is to say the nation, perfornied
the latter.

Not being ablo to govern them, when  united by  a Constitution,
Buenos Ayres governed the nation by dividing it by compacta whieh
promised unión at a future time.     Buenos Ayres would prefer uuion
immediately, if that unión gave it the power which it seeks by división,
ín that sense, it is sincere when it sayrs that it desires unión: it re-
<]uires only to be added—that it wishes to imite the nation to the
province, instrad of uniting the province to the nation ;  that is to sav,
to subordínate the national Argentino sovereignty to the sovereignty of
the province of Buenos Ayres, and not vice versá.    It is not enougb for
it to preside over the Union, to be the Capital of the Confederation.
The l'ederal Constitution, which it rejocts at present, gives it that rank.
The third article of the Constitution whieh rules the Provinces, says :
" Tho authoritios who earry on tho Federal Government reside in the
" town of Buenos Ayres, whieh is declared the capital of the Con-
" federation by a special law."

Buenos Ayres prefers to be the metrópolis of thirteen eolonie?,
than to be the capital of thirteen provinces equftl to iteelf.     For forty

ing the orestion of • national government, as a mesns of domination over th„ „,k"
provmce., in cousequence of their disunio» and mutual isolation ^32

then establiahed, the ttatu quo, mentioned iu basis the second, ahall
cease.

4t. The deputies of Buenos Ayres shall concur in the revisión of the
actual constitution, by doing it in the form and place which the tiro
parties shall agree upon by means of a convention ad hoc, which must
be made six months before the lst of May, 1863.

5. The said ttatu quo of 1854 and 1855, shall be guaranteed by the
govemment of the United States ; at any rate with regard to the part
relating to commercial franchises and liberties.

(Signed) Daiuacio Ve:lez Sabsitield.*

* Theae bases having been objected to by the Minister of the United States, as a
raediator, Buenos Ayres has withdrawn them, and has replaced them all by the
folio J&ing : —

" As soon as Q-eneral Urquiza withdraws from public life the State of Buenos
Ayres will concur to forra a hational convention, to revise the constitution of the Ar-
gentino confederation of May the lst, 1863, so as to join itself again to the other
Argentina provinces under a common law."

As the confederation owes, at present, its public existence to General Urquiza,
and as he is the man best able to maintain the order of things which it has constituted
under his influence, the retirement of that chief would have as a natural result, the re-
turn of the provinces to their former state of mutual isolation and decomposition.
And as that is exactly wliat Buenos Ayres longs for, the basis which it has presented
on the lOth of August (namely, the withdrawal of General Urquiza) will not fail to
bring about the result for which it seeks ; in other words, the decomposition of the
national govemment.

According to that, this proposal is equivalent to an evasión or total abandonment
of any thought of unión for the present.

In fact, if the Argentino provinces consented to exelude from the administraron
of their public afluir» the man who has freed them from the domination of Rosas,
and who has given them a constitution, a free commerce with Europe, international
treaties, and direct and regular diplomatic relations, the world might justly think that
the Argentinos were wanting in right feeling, and that they are the most disloyal and
unfortunate people on earth.

The same opinión would not be formed, if, on the contrary, a demand wae made
to sepárate Dr. Alcina and his mfourage from the Buenos Ayrian adminiatration, as
a means of re-establishing the unity of the nation.

The Argentino Bepublic owes no sort of known service to Dr. Alcina. All hia
patriotism consists in loving the province of Buenos Ayres.

In anything but a patriotic spirit, Dr. Alcina has divided the Republic by iso-
lating Buenos Ayres, since the revolution of September the llth, 1852 ; and nothing
would be more natural than to remove from power the author of that separation, as
the best means of re-establishing the unión which he has destroyed.

The removal of Dr. Alcina would leave only a province without its present heod ;
while that of Urquiza would deprive of their Governor thirteen provinces, or rather
a whole nation.

The retirement of Alcina would leave a bad cause without a ehief, since Alcina
repreaents now  the true cause of Rosas,  which  consists cssentially  in prevent-

33

A trrafy on sucli bases wr uld not be a solution of the queation
which divides Buenos Ayres from the rest of the provinces. It would
not either be the me:ms of preporitig that solution. It would be. on
tbe contrary, the means of putting it oíF; or, at any rate, to solve tho
qúestion by the dismembermont of the country, and not \>y its uuion

iSucli a treaty would be a proniise of unión for the future (hasis the
lst), with the eoiidition of remaining separated for the prenent (basi:»
the 2ud).

Ab in all tito treaties of the. kind made proviously botween Buenos
Ayres and the provinces. unión was the ostensible object, but disunion
the rt-al eiul in view.

The treaty recently proposed is the expression of the traditioual
poüey of Buenos Ayres, for the lnst forty years, towards the Argentiue
provinces.    It is the resume of the treaties of 1822, 1831, 1804, and
1855.   In alJ these domestic compacta or couveutions, eoneluded on the
proposal of Buenos Ayres as a means of solving the same qnestion ns
that debated at present (which is as oíd as the revolution against ¡Sj¡aiu).
the object was to divide the Ropublie into two pjirties ; nnmely, that of
Hítenos Ayres, on one aide, and t!iat of the provinces on the other.
The former was to govern, und the latter was to accept what the former
did without its participation.    Buenos Ayres performed the tirt-t part
for forty years ; the provinces, and that is to say the nation, performed
the latter.

Not beiug able to govern them, when  united by  a Constitution,
Buenos Ayres governed the nation by dividiug it by compacta whi«:h
promised unión at a future time.     Buenos Ayres would prefer unión
immediately, if that unión gave it the power which it aceks by división.
In that sensc, it is sincere vihen it says that it desires unión: it re-
«juires only to be added—that it wishes to unite the nation to the
province, insttad of uniting the province to the nation ;  that is to say,
to subordínate the national ArgCiitine sovereignty to the sovereignty of
the province of Buenos Ayres, and not vice versá.    It is not euoiigb for
it to preside over the Union, to be the Capital of the Confederation.
The l'ederal Constitution, which it rejoots at present, gives it that rank.
The third artiole of the Constitution which rules the Provinces, says i
" Tho authoritios who carry on the federal Government reside in the
" town of Buenos Ayres, which is declared the capital of the Con-
" federation by a special law."

Buenos Ayrea prefers to be the metrópolis of thirteen colonies-,
than to be the capital of thirteen provinces cqual to itself.     For forty

ing the crention of a national govemment, as a means of dominution over the olhur
provinces, in cousequence of their die. uuion and mutual isolution.34.

yeaxa it governed the Provinee», without their tnkmg «i»y part in thcir
owa governmeut with regará to foreign atíairB. To obtain this, Buenos
Ayree alway* reinained out of the comniiuiiry. It acoepted the unión
as a promise, and it required división as a preliminary condition ; «o
that, to.arrive at unión, it began by keeping it at a diftance. This is
what Buenos Ayres aetually pretenda at present, and its last project of
treaty is an oxpression and pruof of the unehangeable nature of its
policy.

To attain its end, it admits, by tbe firet basis, that tbere is an Ar-
gentine Bx'public, a national integrity. Without being Argentine,
Buenos Ayres could have no title to ropreseut and govcru tho Argen-
tinos.

But, not to be govemed by them, it reraoves at a distaneeall eornmon
compact of unión or constitution which would eompromise it into re-
speetiug the majority; and, instead, it proposes preparatory oompacts for
a future uuiou, whieh it does not deaire, like in tho treaties of 1854
and 1855 which divided the Argentino ltopublio into two governoiente
and two different countries. It is preciscly in those treaties thnt began
the system of diatinguishing between Buenos Ayres and the Argentine
Coufedoration.

On those compacta of r \ú dismemborment (which Buenos Ayres an-
nuJled by invadiug the provinee of Santa Pe, and which it wants to
re-establish nowj rests the pretended right of Buenos Ayres to have
direct diplomatic relations.

•Such an attitudo—ambiguous, double, without politieal colouring,
only suitable to elude all responsibilitieB,— is that which Buenos Ayres
alway s look, and whieh it stiü wishes to take at present. Ou the ono
side. to belong to the Argentine nation, to have tbe right of interfering
in its aff'airs and representing it abroad ; and, on the other, to abstuin
from being a party to the creation of a uational government, to have a
pretext for disregarding and eluding its authority. This is to live as
a State in a State, so as not to receive the law from the Argentine
people, and not to be govemed by a majority of its fe)low-eitÍ7.ens, and
so that the laws which Buenos Ayres obeys be niado exclusivelv by
Pártenos (the port men), but never by a jnajority of tbe citizens of the
nation,—that is to say, by Arqentines.

With a foot inside the house and anotlier in the street, Bueno»
Ayres wishes to bo Argentine, when the question is to govern the pro-
vínoos, and tbreign, if it is required to obey the majority of Argentiues.
By coufuaing tho government with tho nation, Buenos Ayres pretende
that it is possible to belong to the nation and to live in it without de-
pendiug from the national authority, sitnply by abstaining from conati-
tuting such an authority.

35

In fact no one, even in Buenos Ayres, has any idea of thero being
two Argentine nations ; two nation-» with the samo ñamo, tho same
colours, the samo coat of arma, the same seal, and the children of whom
are fellow-countrynion aud citizens. That is the reason why Buenos
Ayres does not cali itself a " nation ¡" it calis itaelf a " State,"—a State
of a Confederatioa, whieh aecepts or rejeets, which lessens or ulereases
according as it finds itself at the head orón tho level of other provinces.
It invokes the federal system to justify such an attitude ; but the repre-
sentativo of the first Confederation in the world, has just told it, that
an a Stato of the Argentine Confederation, at the head of which it lately
appeared as such before other nations, it ought to entrust esternal
policy to the Government which represents the majority of the Union,
instead of pretending that the whole Union of tbe Provinces should
entrust its externa! policy to the Provincial authority of Buenos Ayres.
The iatter pretensión is a denial of all principie of national existence
and authority. Unfortunately, that is the ground on which Buenos
Ayres takes its stand.

Buenos Ayres destroyed the authority of Spain, in 1810, and pro-
claimed, as a principio of national authority, the sovereigntg of the Ar-
gentine people. Buenos Ayres, in undertakiug that revolution,
anuounced to tho world that the people of the United Provinces of the
Bio de la Plata was arrived at its state of manhood, and that it could
govern itself. ?í evertheless at the present day, after balf a eentury, it
refusea to acknowtedge tbe sovereign authority of tho Argentine people
whieh it proclaimed, and it declares, like another Guatemala, " that it
recognises, on earth, no other authority as superior to that of ite pro-
vinee."

Buenos Ayres, then. in accordance with this, in the isolated position
whieh it has assumed, represents mere disorder, the rejection of all
principie of national authority, the absence of all regular national go-
vernment ; in a word, the principie of the dissolution of the Argentine
Bepublic.

To support this policy of perdition, Buenos Ayres seeks or solicita
the indirect co-operation of the foreign nations which are materially
interested in seeing secured the peace of the Plata countries ! To find
peace in that way would be, for those nations, to obtain a peace cstab-
lished by ni i ráele, a peace fallen from lleaven; instead of its being, as it
is every where else, peace as a work of the authority of a Nation.

D. Un, PrmWr.'tó, I.auiib'4 Conduit Streot, W.C.