The record-union., 1891-03-29
CHILE,
Origin of the Terrible War in
That Nation.
What "La Republfca" Thinks-The
Acts of Don Manuel Balmaceda,
Presidential State of Anarchy.

Presidential State of Anarchy.
| TRANSLATED from the Spanish for the SUNDAY
UNION, by S. II. Gerrish.
! For two months past, on the Pacific
| Coast ferocious war has carried desc
lation and death before it in a Pacific
State. The Chilean nation, that during
fifty years, more or less. has enjoyed en-
viable tranquility, elevating itself to the
hight Of the most prosperous nations of
the American Continent, is to-day deliv-
cred up to that greatest misfortune for a
people, anarchy.
Without attempting to explain here
which of the two parties to the internicine
combat originated the guilt of situation
SO abnormal for Chile, we will limit our
selves to a statement of the rise of the
contest, the end of which is to be seen.
Sooner or later the slippery road of the
dictator will fail him, who was fated in
| an evil hour to conceive the project of
placing himself across the popular cur
| rent, without rejecting that it would
cause the patriotic blood of brothers to
| flow; ne will be recorded as the chief
| figure of a darkened page in the national
| history OF his country, and be followed by
the maledictions that the widows, the
| disinherited wives and the orphans will
| launch against him with their means of
| pain and hunger.
The thirty seventh article of the Con-
stitution of Chile says only by virtue of
law the Government may:
| /. Fix annually the expenses of the
public administration.
| 2. Fix equally, in each year, the forces
NfS hot ,fn,, ,,oI
| in time of peace or war.
3. Fix the contributions that they de-
| cree for the term of eighteen months
| only. And these forces of sea and land
they fix also for this same term of
| eighteen months.
The 3lst of December passed, and the
| term had expired during which the eX-
istence of the permanent army was au-
thorized, as also the term of the law en-
! forcing payment for public expenses.
The authorization was not renewed by
| the Congress OF the nation.
Thus it is that since this epoch all that
| has related to the movement of the Ad-
ministration, and especially in the de-
partment of home affairs, has been
| done outside of the law, breaking by this
| fact the constitutional regime, or as may
| be better said, the fundamental letter of
| the republic.
For what cause did the Congress of
| mates formerly enforced?
1t was means of reprisal taken against
the government of Senior Balmaceda, for
having manifested publicly the reso-
luton OF ominating successor to the
| Presidency, and naming as the candidate
Senior Sanfuentes.
1t is he, then, who is responsible for the
rupture of the internal peace of the coun-
try; and it is useless for US to make any
personal reflections upon the President,
Senior Balmaceda. He speaks for us in
his manifesto published a short time
| afterwards, with the idea Of jlstifying
his conduct as chief magistrate of the
republic.
by the guilt of Congress-" he says,
| the Government is found without the
law of estimates of the expenses, and
| without the law that fixes the forces of
| sea and land; but obeying the imperious
and express command of the fundamental
| law. he will continue administering the
State, and sustaining his authority at all
costs, having for his object the conserva-
| ton of the public order in the interior
and the security of the republic in the
| exterior. That in consequence of this he
will preserve the army and navy on the
| footing in which they are found, paying
at the same time for the other services
| that constitute the social life and the ex-
| istence of the republic.'
Such are the words of Senior Balmaceda,
and as we have just said they speak for
us, and they show what will follow, as
there has passed to him all the preroga-
| tiveS that Congress would not authorize
that is to say, he will be in power as alb
solute dictator.
What may we argue from all this
That Chile has broken to-day with her
| ancient habits of peace, exasperated by
| the disturbances in the Government,
which ought to serve as lesson to those
/ in nfE rhn 10 in, f1,n fr1n N<,f
the people, until they are imprudent,
and whom they wish to govern as herds
of servants and vassals. Forgetting
| those sound and just principles which
bride the passions and mark the correct
line of action, will bring, some day or
another, anarchy.
That the abuse of power sooner or later
will destroy the social editice is certain,
| launching the people into great slaughter
of brother against brother, in which will
| be buried the exterior credit and the
wealth OF the nation. An autocracy in
power is ever the lever of disorder, with
cynicism as much on the part of one as
the other, governed and governors. It
blots the democratic institutions out,
sinking the most energetic and noble
people into an abyss of stagnation and of
night.
What will be the end in Chile? Taking
the antecedents of cruelty, that rule in
| CdSh palty LIZ OliO C<sli IoloScc Wldt IL
will be. If we note the financial sit
uation, or the resources that the bel
| ligerents have, we opine that it will be a
prolonged war by the fact that the insur-
rectionists have possession of the prov
| lnce of Tarapaca, province that has
proved continual fountain of metallic
wealth, which they can soon convert into
cannons and material of war to carry
them later to the gates of the capital city,
Santiago. There their aim will be to pro-
claim before the entire nation the princi-
| pie of the sovereignty of the people and
| to announce the fall OF Balmaceda
We will let the electric wires bring us
| the news of these events, that develop SO
| gloomily i'll this province, in other times
SO full of commercial life and of riches
without equal; a province that formerly
| was for Peru perpetual source of ma
| tional fortune; a province that after the
! years of the contention of this last coun-
| try with Chile, was the Alsace and Lor-
| raine of South America; in a word, a
province that to-day by its incalculable
| saltpeter works, divides, parts and tears
all the nation of Chile, where in the night
SO many of the residents in towns and
cities awake in terror as they hear every
wheer amidst cannonades, the rattle of
sabre and musketry, the awful accom-
paniment of double murder.-Ld Re
pnbtica.
| WEATHER GRO? BULLETIN.