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• 1 media/Thumb123.png 2024-11-08T11:52:14-05:00 "Letter from Haiti (from our special correspondent)" 30 A letter from Haiti: Various items: A rival attempt to found a Haitian newspaper in Paris – Commerce – Political developments in Haiti: Cabinet appointments, new French minister, rumours of war with the Dominican, Pan-American Conference, clergy appointments plain 2024-12-13T13:33:29-05:00 09-02-1890 Translate:Port-au-Prince, 11 August 1890
  
  Dear Director,
  
  If I can rely on your predictions, this letter will arrive around the time the La Fraternité appears. I would like to offer my most ardent wishes for the first Haitian newspaper in Paris; I applaud your honourable attempt, and I hope that, with God's help, we can make it work out. Whatever happens, the new generation will have thus proved that it not only has the idea of progress, but also the firm intention of achieving it.
  
  The promotion of our friend Bowler continues to yield good results. The subscription lists are filling up with much gusto. I am thrilled by the success of your joint project. I'm convinced, indeed, that when the moment comes to let him into the secret, Bowler will be glad to unite his efforts to yours for the foundation of this paper that is lacking in Paris.
  
  Still, I believe that our friend has made an unwise promise, if it is true that he has been hired, as Mr. Magny claimed in a letter to the director of the Liberté, "to send two young Haitians every two years to collaborate with him." Mr. Adhémar Auguste is right to have some reservations about this—even though, for that matter, we don't share his way of seeing the practical current utility of a Haitian newspaper in Paris.
  
  The upkeep of Bowler's two young collaborators in Paris would cost money, a lot of money, especially if they take advantage of their time in the "City of Lights" to complete their studies in arts and sciences. Because I doubt they would go on this trip simply to collaborate on a newspaper. There is no shortage, in Paris, of compatriots who could provide Bowler with intelligent and serious information from Paris. In the absence of those who are returning home this year, do you not still have Jules Auguste, Leconte (who are already in the course of a career), Audain, Doret, Amédée Brun, and many others who would want nothing more than to appear in this sort of periodical jousting?
  
  In short, I ardently hope that you combine your work with Bowler; but I encourage you both to found your work on a modest base; you will thus have a greater chance that it will last.
  
  Now, a word on the situation in Haiti.

  Commerce and Finances

  The commercial season promises to be a good one. There have never been more imports than this year. And it is not done yet! New firms are being founded in Port-au-Prince. The old foxes of the trade have restrained their orders. — The course of change is varying weakly. Slight upward trend.
  
  Trade with Europe: 10 ½ - 11 %
  —        —   the United States: 9 - 10%
  American gold: 9 - 10% (bank exchange rate)
  Port-au-Prince coffee is given at 103/105
  Cacao: 5 ¾ cent. per pound
  Cotton: 9 ¾  —     —     —
  Logwood: P. 6.5 the thousand
  On 8 August P. 66,030 of paper money we pulled form circulation

  Politics

  Mr. C. Haentjens, Minister of Agriculture and Public Works, has submitted his resignation (1 August), following Mr. St-Martin Dupuy, Minister of the Interior, who has not yet been replaced. This resignation has been as commented on as the last one. The newspapers are saying that it was for the same reason, a dissent with Mr. Firmin, the Minister of Finance, the most important member of the cabinet.
  
  The President of Haiti received a solemn audience with Mr. Flesch, the new French minister who presented his credentials. The reception was very cordial, they exchanged the usual compliments. Mr. Flesch gives the impression of a capable man and a likeable man. (I have attached copies of the two speeches they gave). The Government is clearly enchanted to see a renewal of the relations between France and Haiti. It is an excellent note for our good compatriot Mr. Box, who spared no expense to obtain the recognition of the order of things legally established in 1889.
  
  With the gossip crazed nature of the people of Port-au-Prince, we're hearing many tales about the hostile attitude that the Dominican Republic is taking toward us. You will have guessed that it is a matter of the customs dispute to which the Exposé of the situation makes reference. For the time being, refute all rumours of war with the Dominican. We have no intention of attacking the Dominicans; and they would never be foolish enough to take the offensive.
  
  People are still talking about the arbitration treaty that the United States submitted to the powers who participated in the Pan-American Congress.
  
  The Haitian government's representative, Mr. Price, will have approved the project, awaiting ratification in the Chambers.
  
  Of the twenty republics invited to the conference, nine have signed. Peru, Uruguay, Colombia, the Argentine Republic, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Mexico, Venezuela and Chile refused to engage. According to the newspaper La Voie, the Senate in Washington will have definitely buried the project.
  
  Mgt. Milia, delegate of the Holy See, arrived on the 3rd of August. He was given a brilliant reception. He is, they say, charged with conferencing with the government on the subject of the nomination of the successor of Mgr Hillion, our incomparable late archbishop.
  
  There has been much laughter over the L'aventure of the journalist who bears that name. After a fuming letter from Father Bauger, denying the presentation of his candidature to the archiepiscopal see by that parishioner without a mandate, does he not see that our Laventure is stuck upon his idea and persists in recommending the curate of Petit-Goâve to the attention of the Government! Father Bauger, if he was not a man of the cloth, would have been the man to whom to send witnesses.
  
  A bientot. 
  
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• 1 media/Thumb124.png 2024-11-08T11:52:57-05:00 "Reception of the Minister Plenipotentiary of France by the Haitian Government" 16 The new French minister to Haiti is received in Port-au-Prince. plain 2024-12-26T08:52:32-05:00 Translation:
  Monsieur Maurice Ernest Flesch, on submitting on the 7th of August to President Hyppolite, his letters from the President of the French Republic accrediting him as Extraordinary Envoy and Minister Plenipotentiary to the government of Haiti, gave the following speech:

  Mister President
  
  I have the honour to submit to your Excellency letters from the President of the French Republic accrediting me as Extraordinary Envoy and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Haiti, the Nation whose votes have called you, Mister President, to occupy the top authority.
  
  Inspired by the sentiments that animate the French Government, I will apply myself to further strengthening, in the interest of the development of the prosperity of both countries, cordial and long-lasting relations, and I am counting on the benevolent support of your Excellency as well as the friendly cooperation of his Government, to help me to pursue this task, in a fruitful and effective manner.
  
  I am glad, for that matter, to have been designated by the confidence of the President of the French Republic to represent France in a country that is so similar to ours in terms of language and institutions, in a way that produces mutual sympathies.
  
  Allow me the opportunity to respectfully offer to your Excellency my sincere expressions of hopes that I am forming for his person and for the Haitian nation.

  The President responded to this speech in the following terms:

  Mister Minister,
  
  It is with great pleasure that I receive the letters from his Excellency the President of the French Republic, that accredit you as Extraordinary Envoy and Minister Plenipotentiary of the French Republic to the Republic of Haiti of which I occupy the top authority.
  
  I have never doubted the good wishes of the French Government, though it still gives me infinite pleasure to receive this new assurance from you.
  
  It is my conviction, Mister Minister, that your presence at the head of the French legation is a pledge of harmony and of cordial relations between our two countries. The reputation of loyalty, of uprightness and sincerity that proceeded you here is a sure guarantee for me. You can also count fully on my willingness to facilitate your task in any way that I can.
  
  We do not have much to do in order to succeed in strengthening the ties of good friendship that unite Haiti to France. As you have said well, there is between us a conformity of language and institutions which can only lead to mutual sympathies. What nature and history have done, it will only be consolidated by our common willingness.
  
  I accept with all my heart the good wishes you are forming for my person and for the Haitian nation. I would be bursting with happiness if Heaven, in granting your wishes, also protects His Excellency President Carnot and the valiant French Nation.

  Except from the Moniteur,
  Official newspaper of Haiti

  
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