section of ancient Colombia, has completely terminated; and we hope that our relations with her will again be as close and sincere as before.

In Mexico the war may be said to have terminated; and our vows should now be offered up, that that rich and privileged region of America may be constituted freely, and preserved against the excesses of rapacious, immoral, and turbulent demagogues.

With the other States of Latin America, excepting the Empire of Brazil, which has a Legation accredited to this Government, we have no continued diplomatic relations, but we nevertheless have a lively interest in their welfare and prosperity.

The great Republic of The Northern United States, which from her unheard-of display of wealth and power excited the admiration of the world, has not yet been able to put an end to the fearful war which consumes her. Notwithstanding that painful situation, which I deplore, the Government of that powerful State has just given us another proof of sincere friendship in the advantageous and equitable agreement made between us, and which will be submitted for your approbation by the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The friendship which binds us to Spain, France, and England, has been carefully cultivated by us, and we have received from their Governments, especially that of His Majesty the Emperor of the French, constant proofs of friendly cordiality. The additional agreement to the Treaty of 1840, which we made with our ancient metropolis, has been ratified, and its ratifications duly exchanged in Paris.

If political complications had not obliged us to face exorbitant expenditures, the state of the national treasury would be comparatively prosperous after having established the new system of keeping the accounts, which has enabled us to ascertain accurately our revenue, and closed the sources of fraud. But so soon as the defence of the country demanded the outlay of enormous sums for the campaign of 1860 and the preparations of 1861, and the debts of former Governments had exhausted the treasury, we were obliged to have recourse to public credit, and procure as a voluntary loan, at moderate interest, the sum of half a million of dollars, assigning for the payment thereof the free proceeds of the Customs dues of Guayaquil.

This loan and others which followed it being exhausted, we arrived at the critical extremity of remaining without funds or sufficient revenue, in case we could not contract a loan at a long date in Europe which would permit us to redeem the Customs revenue, and enable us likewise to complete within 3 years the public works already commenced. The difficulties which the negotiation of this loan has met with, and above all the resistance which party spirit excited even in the Government Council against this salutary opera

tion, obliged me to abandon it; and placed us under the pressing necessity of liberating the Custom-House, putting in forced circulation the sum of 600,000 dollars in notes of the private bank of Guayaquil, redeemable half-yearly, with funds sufficient to extinguish them totally up to 1865; the first amortization, to the amount of 100,000 dollars, was effected last month. It is evident that the more rapid the amortization the better; and if you are of the same opinion, you should authorize the Government to negotiate a loan for the amount you may deem convenient.

Despite so many difficulties, and the desperate efforts of an immoral and turbulent faction which does not recede before any crime, and has obliged the moderate exercise of the extraordinary powers, Equator has made solid and lasting progress. More than 46 kilometres of public roads completed, many bridges erected, colleges either restored or new, new schools and new religious orders destined for teaching, and above all the Concordat, the basis of the re-establishment of morality and the foundation of the future prosperity of the Republic, lastly, the suppression of forced loans; these are the principal improvements of which Equator has reason to be proud.

On behalf of instruction and public works, the Government would have done much more, if for the latter it could have reckoned upon greater resources, and if for the former it had not met with a constant obstacle in the law which keeps Equator in gross ignorance, and in a state bordering on barbarity.

The material improvements and the diffusion of knowledge would be next to nothing, however much we might advance in either sense, if public morality-the life and soul of society, even more necessary in the Republican system in which the frailty of the institutions and laws, the instability of the Governments, and the frequent overthrows, leave society defenceless at the mercy of unchecked passions were not raised from its prostrate state.

But what hope is there of obtaining moral reform, if the clergy charged with its teaching forgets the greater part of the evangelical mission; and what hope of reforming the clergy, if the liberty of action and independence of living with which its divine founder endowed it, be not restored to the Church. The Catholic Government of a Catholic people has fulfilled its duty then, in applying to the Holy See, depicting the lamentable situation in which we found. ourselves as a natural consequence of the want of the liberty and independence of the Church, and beseeching it to apply to these serious evils the proper remedy. It requested also, that in order to establish and sustain this reform, a prelate should be sent empowered with the necessary authority, and proposed that the sum required for sustaining the Apostolic Legation be paid from the tithes,

inasmuch as the Holy Father, deprived of a great part of his temporal dominions, was in absolute need of resources and was living on the generous oblations of the faithful. The wishes of the Government were attended to; the Concordat was concluded with the view of granting independence and liberty to the Church, and obtaining through their medium the ecclesiastical and moral reform which Equator stands in need of in order to be free and happy; and as the Convention authorized me to execute the same, which implied its publication, in the same manner as this required previous ratification and exchange of ratifications, I proceeded to put it in force after being ratified and published with due solemnity.

It is not to be wondered at that an act of so much importance and transcendency should have found adversaries and opponents. Party spirit, irreligious and demagogic tendencies, long-standing abuses, the resistance of routine and of the habits of scandalous life, must naturally cause the freedom of the Church and the purity of the clergy to be viewed with disgust. It was natural, then, that there should first be opposed to it the peculiar difficulties in the establishment of every reform, then the necessity of submitting it for your approbation in virtue of the very Decree in which I was authorized to conclude it, then the prohibition of the Constitution to the delegation of the powers of the Congress; but the accuracy of that maxim, according to which the easiest method of knowing the value of any action or person is to examine who are their enemies, has never been better proved.

If on carrying into effect the Concordat in all its parts difficulties should arise, even if they be not such as from malice and ignorance have been exaggerated, there is no doubt but that they will be successively overcome by the combined action of the Church and the Government, and that finally the Concordat itself can be modified by common consent, conformably with what is therein established.

The necessity of legislative approbation has reference simply to the responsibility of the Government, and not to the validity and obligatory force of an act ratified and published in virtue of competent authorization. If the conduct of the Government should not gain your approbation, the Government must be judged; but the Concordat remains firm and in force, inasmuch as its ratification was valid, and valid its publication, as in like manner the Decree was valid, authorizing me to execute it, and consequently to ratify and publish it, without which the execution was impossible.

The objection that as legislative powers cannot be delegated, therefore the authorization I obtained to place the Concordat in execution was unconstitutional and null, is more plausible; but at all times and throughout all the modern Republics of America, where delegation is prohibited, a distinction is made between autho

rization and delegation; the only object has been to prevent the Presidents from gradually investing themselves with legislative powers, and to avoid the concentration of power in the hands of one person, as was the case in the epoch of the first Roman Emperors. Thus in 1858 the President of New Granada was authorized to conclude and ratify a Treaty with The United States of North America, despite the prohibition of the delegation of legislative powers; the law of public education issued in 1838 in virtue of the authorization which the Congress of 1837 conferred on Señor Rocafuerte, still exists amongst us; to these examples might be added the various authorizations given by the last Convention, as also those which have frequently been conceded by other legislatures.

Finally, even if the said authorization were null, or still more, even if I had not been authorized at all, the Concordat would exist, as is the case with all public Treaties concluded by a legitimate Government. On that supposition my responsibility would be compromised-not the obligatory force of the Treaty once ratified and the ratifications exchanged-because the personality of the nation is represented only by the Government in its relations with other. Powers, according to the common law of nations. This principle of international jurisprudence is confirmed by numerous historical examples, and in Equator itself has been respected in the observance of the Treaty which binds us to our ancient metropolis. This Treaty was concluded in 1840, and ratified in the space of one year, without having been examined and much less approved by the legislature of 1841, which was dissolved for want of a quorum. And, nevertheless, the Treaty with Spain is valid, it has been observed by the different Administrations, and would have been observed in spite of them if they had attempted to annul it.

The Concordat is therefore valid, because the Decree is so which authorized me to execute and therefore to ratify and publish it; and it is valid above all, because it has been made by the legitimate Government of the Republic. Any attack upon an inviolable Treaty would dishonour us; and neither you, nor I, will consent to our dishonour, nor yet consent that the Church should continue fettered, to the ruin of religion and morality, the perdition of the clergy, and the disgrace of the Republic.

If the conduct of the Government deserves your support; if you assist in saving the country from the embarrassments of the monetary crisis; if you devote yourselves to reform what the laws of elections, municipal system of order, public instruction and judicial organization have of inconsiderate and anarchical; if you give to Power the force which it requires in order to continue in the path of improvements, and repress the abettors of disorder and crime; I respond, placing my trust in God, that, upheld by the [1862-63. LIII.]

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loyalty of the army, and the sympathies of the nation, the Government will continue to raise Equator from the backwardness and prostration in which we found it; and I shall descend from my seat, after terminating the constitutional period, with the honour of having worked untiringly for the welfare of all.

But if the majority of the Houses should not support the Government, if the conduct of the Administration be thought worthy of censure, my duty will be to retire at once, offering up my fervent vows that Providence may bestow on the Republic a magistrate who may be more successful than I in ensuring its repose and welfare.

Palace at Quito, 10th of August, 1863.

G. GARCIA MORENO.

SPEECH of the King of Bavaria, on the Opening of the Legislative Chambers.-Munich, June 23, 1863.

(Translation.)

GENTLEMEN, SENATORS, AND DEPUTIES,

Ir is with pleasure that I offer my Royal salutation to the Legislative Chambers, the representatives of my beloved people, again assembled around me.

I dissolved the former Chamber of Deputies, that had worthily served the country, in order to preserve the progress of the civil law reform promised to the land from all danger of interruption, and also to provide în due time what may be needful in the event of the discussions on a general law of German procedure not having attained the desired results within a defined period. I have thus given fresh proof how much I have at heart the speediest and most complete accomplishment possible of the promised law reform.

The new composition of the Chamber of Deputies is the result of elections, the freedom of which has been in no way interfered with by my Government, and which were made under the fresh impression of the lively debates upon the deeply-felt questions which then occupied all Germany; thereby a sufficient guarantee is afforded me that through the organ of this Landtag, I shall hear the genuine expression of public opinion on these questions. It will afford me great satisfaction to be in this way strengthened in my conviction that my policy is in unison with the wishes and sympathies of my faithful people.

In union with several German Governments. I have had a pro position laid before the Confederation, through which I hoped to