The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-01-18
The Samans Bay Conventional Daring
and Dangerous Scheme.


obtained from President Baez grants which
include not only extraordinary commercial
privileges, but absolute sovereignty over
large tract of country and its people.
Baez. of course, has no more right
to make these concessions than Gen.
eral Grant would have to convey the
bay of New York, the island of Manhattan
and the lands and waters, ports and harbors
adjacent to company Of Dominican specula-
tors The sovereignty conceded to the SANTANA
Company is greater than that of the State of
New York, or any State in the Union, for tin
cludes. the right to levy and collect customs
duties and to do many other things which can
only be done by sovereign nation. Baez not
only sells them these extraordinary privileges,
but he sells them the flag of the Republic Of St
Domingo to use it as they may see proper, and
almost in an hour corporation springs into
existence with power even beyond that once
possessed by the famous East India Company.
The full text of this convention has been
carefully concealed by the company; but in
stead of it an incomplete and partial synopsis
of it was furnished to papers willing to pub
lish it. The synopsis was nothing but an ad-
vertisement for the company, and its unfair
ness is fully illustrated by the fact that the
capital stock of the corporation was put down
at eight hundred thousand dollars whereas
the convention shows that it is to be, in fact,
twenty million dollars in money and ten mil
lion dollars in bonds, making the gigantic
aggregate of thirty million dollars. But even
this colossal sum falls very far short of what
it would in reality become; for it does not
include the land, OF, rather, the SOW
ereignty grants of President Baez at
SANTANA. At rental of one hun
dred and fifty thousand dollars per
annum the company gets all the rights which
the United States possessed in the Bay Of
SANTANA under the treaty of 1869, and more,
for it has governing power which the United
States did not have Besides all this the
company can build railroads and telegraphs
in any part of the island, obtaining grants as
extraordinary as those accorded to the Union
Pacific and other railroads when Congress was
giving away the public domain. Every league
of railroad CONSTRUCTED by the company brings
its square league of land, and every three
leagues oftelegraph square league grant. Baez
gives away land as freely as Satan offered it on
the mountain, though, like Satan, it was not
his to give. Much of the island may belong
to the Republic of St. Domingo as absolutely
as our Western domain belongs to the Re-
public of the United States but it seems i'm
possible that convention of this kind can be
carried into effect without encroaching on many
private titles. An INSCRIPTIONS dictator and
a mercenary company are not likely to find
many obstacles where only private rights are
concerned ), but this consideration alone will
make honorable men look upon the company
with suspicion
This, we think, is to be company as un-
scrupulous in its acts as it is extraordinary in
its privileges 1t is a company organized
with an explicit power of becoming o '.ring"
The directors have the right of perpetuating
their power indefinitely by q process as simple
as it is effective. Nothing moro ingenious
was ever contrived by any set of scheming
spectators. The power of the company is in
its Council of Direction, which is to consist of
Seven directors are to be elected every year,
but those already elected may hold Office till
their successors are chosen. Failure to
hold an election works no forfeiture Of
the rights and immunities of the company,
consequently the Council of Direction can
perpetuate itself by merely emitting to order
an election. This principle is the same as the
theory of classification adopted by the Erie
Ring when Gould and Fisk wished to keep
the control of the road in their own hands,
But this scheme of perpetuation by the prin-
ciple of classification is more imperial than
dreamed. few men are in effect granted q
guardianship over the entire Dominican terri
tory; and it is evidently the intention Of its
projectors that the Company of the Bay Of
SANTANA is virtually to become the government
of st. Domingo. No additional grant seems
necessary to make the people of the Republic
as completely subject to these men as were the
inhabitants of India to the tyrannical corpora
ton which once held such unbounded sway in
the East Wall street is to exercise in the West
Indies the power which Leadenhall street
formerly exercised in the East Indies.
Another evidence of the INSCRIPTIONS char
acter of this corporation is the readiness with
which the corporators agree to organize lob
by at Washington, professedly in behalf Of st.
Domingo, but in reality for themselves. In
levying duties upon imports the company prom
Uses to treat st. Domingo as q favored nation.
This promise is more specious than precise,
and it is not On easy matter to determine
its exact meaning. On the lobby point, how
ever, there is no installing the work these
gentlemen impose upon themselves. They
are to use all their influence with