AFFAIRS IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC.

[FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

Omission in a former Letter Supplied—Recent Legislative Enactment for the Encouragement of Mining Operations—Sanction Granted to a Monetary System—Public Excitement Incidentally Connected with the Latter, and the Cause of it.

In the synopsis which I gave, in a former communication, of the principal articles of the Dominican constitution, I omitted to notice one to which recent occurrences have attracted much attention and given considerable prominence. By its terms, the President is empowered, during the continuance of the actual war with the Haytien republic, growing out of the separation from her, and until peace is established, to take the command of the army and navy, mobilize the National Guards, and take all measures he may deem proper for the defence and security of the nation, and as a consequence, to issue all orders and decrees proper for that end, without being subject to any responsibility whatever.

This naturally brings this omission, to illustrate some future detail.

The desire which exists, to turn to account, in the early history of the new world, as being the first, so also the richest field for enterprise and adventure in America. These have been lost sight of and forgotten, or neglected, for a long series of years; and the government has been led, by a consideration of the working of the mines of other countries, particularly from the fear, it is said, of exciting the jealousy of their enemies, and also, perhaps, of foreign powers. Within three or four days, as I have mentioned on a former occasion, mines of coal and copper have been discovered in the territory of the republic. By an act of Congress, passed at its late session, and which was approved the 16th of May last, it is declared that all mines of copper, coal, iron, and of any other description that are found on the public lands, is the property of the republic, and the President is authorized to engage in it. Arrangements for this purpose must be made with the government, or through the medium of the privilege with the Minister of Finance—Mr. Baez—to the state, which is empowered, by contracts of lease or otherwise, to stipulate, in behalf of the republic, for such portion of the net proceeds as may be agreed upon, payable by the operators—never to exceed the ten per cent, or one-twentieth of the product.

The terms of the act specify individuals only. Whether the privilege granted to the government would be extended to organized companies, created inside or outside the republic, on an extensive scale, in the usual way, and such as there have been, or may be formed, or who might wish to organize in the United States and elsewhere, with a view to operations here, standard under the peculiar circumstances of the case, and the present state of public feeling, there is no doubt; though I incline strongly to the belief that no impediment to such a plan of operations would be officially interposed.

The next measure to which I shall refer, passed by the Congress at its late session, and which received the executive approval, is, as much as any other, what the monetary system—the design being to place the paper currency on a better basis, and to restore the circulating medium of the country to a better credit and condition. This I have heretofore briefly examined and discussed in a general perspective, and the tendency has since been very clearly shown, by the very excited and almost protracted discussions, in the course of which where violence has been threatened. The President, by the recent scheme, agreed upon a system which is very similar to that passed by the Congress on the 16th of June last. It is entitled, in substance, an act to maintain the public credit, which had been affected by the insufficiency of the public imports, and by the consequent depreciation of the government paper.

After the statement in the preamble, that there had been no money now accumulated in the treasury, and to satisfy the public necessities, it is decreed that an issue of one hundred thousand dollars, converted into copper piece, or bill, shall be made, of the denominations of five, ten, and twenty-five cents piece, in coining money, at the rate of fifty-five cents can be minted. It proceeds to direct that all old paper currency shall be called in, and that the applicants may see fit to deliver into the Treasury Department, shall be admitted to the United States, or elsewhere, and its value returned to the owners in coined money, at the rate of fifty-five cents per ounce troy, of the metal delivered, or in the new paper issue.

To provide for the replacement of the present depreciated paper money, and for the whole amount proposed to be called in and cancelled, the treasury is authorized to have prepared, and to issue a new paper issue, of the public credit, to the debit of the National Treasury, to the amount of $250,000, which is to be redeemable by the Treasury Department, and which the public treasury is to guarantee for forty cents, hard money; and also, the further emission of 150,000 bills of the nominal value of two dollars each, and guaranteed in like manner and rate. The whole of both which emissions are to be ready for issuing, at latest, by the first of January, 1849. He is also further directed to have prepared an additional quantity of 375,000 bills of two dollars each, of the aggregate value of $750,000, to be laid by in reserve in the treasury department, to be used for the purpose of expanding the monetary circulation as soon as the condition of mercantile affairs and the state of the treasury will admit.

To hasten the withdrawal of the present issue of paper currency, as soon as the sum of $25,000 in coin is imported, as before provided, dues accruing to the government, computed at half in the new small coin and half in the present paper; the former at the rate of ten dollars to one, while the old paper thus called in is to be cancelled on the spot. And the act goes on to declare that a portion of this new coin, which will from time to time be received, may from time to time be appropriated, in sums not exceeding five thousand dollars at any one time, to the purchase of old silver at the rate before designated, and which shall be turned in for recoinage. Then proceeding to many specific details—of no particular interest to the general reader—the act finally empowers the President to raise, by a loan, $50,000 or $100,000, on the credit and mortgage of the national property, the further sum of 100,000 or 150,000 dollars, to be exclusively, when obtained, to the withdrawal and cancellation of the same amount of the present circulation.

It will be observed that the foregoing act fixes the value of the old emission, to be allowed at the Treasury, at ten for one; which is inside the rate at which it has all along been received for the duties—namely, eight dollars of paper to one of currency; while, as has before been seen, the market price of paper currency has been for some time, for one, with a downward tendency. Now, however, inside the state of feeling, the government, by receiving their own paper only at the rate of ten for one, fixes its market value, though it be still a less one than is exacted in custom dues, and is, consequently, a depreciation in this form, it must in justice be remarked, that the paper currency had reached a lower point than ten for one, and that the government, in giving; and much, if not most of it, went into circulation under such circumstances as to bring home to it than its authors now allow for it on its return; while, on the other hand, it is to be said that there may be, it is true, in the extent, the guarantee now offered by it, an attempt to follow the high examples of greater and far more prominent nations.

As to the question of what will be practically the result of these new schemes, that is quite another affair; and I confess myself unable to discover how a paper currency, which is to have no other circulating medium that is to be issued at market value, and by coin not state-redeemed (exempted from tax and interest, to save it, to discover from the fate of the old issue)—with a heavy list of duties, and with governmental expenditures that each year swell the public debt, can be made too clean a sweep for that, when they got poorly in—or how the authorized loan, still less, it is to be feared, will be negotiated. To me, this scheme appears to evade the issue as they may vainly attempt to do—and to be fraught with the most disastrous consequences, so long as and perseveringly as they please—until the government adopts the only direct and effectual means of removing the difficulty—and that is, by an entire and complete and extensive system of agricultural improvements must be instituted, and by creating resources, an adequate basis for monetary and every other kind of credit, and permanently securing it, that there will string the public credit, or put a stop to paper money, by almost everybody, by foreign immigration. Ah! but the danger of the overthrow of the whole republic—the absolute surrender into their hands of the government by a horde of foreign mercenaries—can be readily seen; and to the only remedy for a great evil, or train of evils, is shown; and how far, a plan, based on nothing but a gossamer tissue of financeering, can relieve the country, time must show, and equity and toil, to end in nothing.

The opposition, from the very beginning of the above act, and on which all the legislative debates were based, and the large amount of dollars, reserved in the chest of the department—namely, 80,000 or 90,000 dollars—has created, notwithstanding the fact of the government extend-ing its inspection, considerable agitation, and disturbances being mostly made in the paper currency, which is now exceedingly depreciated, after several years' accrual from import duties has been reduced to the treasury.

Some unfavorable rumors having got abroad, as to a proposal for modifying their paper, for issuing and drafting the new monetary system, produced a high degree of general excitement, in the strong condition of the chest; when lo! a large force was organized. The city was in a state of uproar. Every body accused the minister of taking measures to relieve the public treasury, and some went so far as to implicate the President, Baez. A deputation from the lower house demanded an account of the minister; while the President was not slow to go further than to declare that it had been approved by the National Assembly or Congress, and that they proceeded to impeach him. The minister, Baez, having resigned his office, and refused to ratify the measure, as was necessary to render it valid, the excitement was somewhat allayed. The President, who had been absent from the city for two or three days on account of his health, returned highly incensed at the proceedings of the Assembly, and issued a decree against certain members who had been most active in promoting the trouble, and a protest was submitted by the House recording from the ground that their rights and privileges as members had been respected with precipitation. Another ground of irritation is, that the Assembly refused to pass a compromise, or "making up." Some of the members of the House, in the course of the debates, warmly discussed the propriety of defining and limiting the general power and extraordinary authority conferred on the President by the article of the constitution, to which I have referred. They maintain, that the executive had, on several occasions, in the exercise of these powers, transcended the intention to its provisions, which, they contended, were intended to apply to a time of war, and to particular times and emergencies. And so ended, at least for the present, this affair, which threatened to tear in pieces the two branches of the government, and which, for some days, threatened to bring the country to a revolution. During this period the public excitement was intense. Business of all kinds was suspended, and even the streets and places of public resort were deserted by peaceable citizens. A similar state of affairs, a scene similar to those which have, within the last century, taken place in another island, would be reproduced here, or, quite as likely, the far more appalling tragedy of 1844, recently enacted in that portion of the island near us, repeated.

But the tempest, which at one time seemed to be so fast gathering to a head, to sweep down, like the hurricanes of these latitudes, with desolating violence on this city, has, happily, completely dissipated itself; and our political heavens again shine as brightly and serenely as could be expected, at least, though it may be, not of tropical brilliancy.

The President still holds firmly his uncontrolled authority; and it may, perhaps, be reasonably questioned whether this rule of the strong hand, when dictated by an honest mind, is not the best for this people; and, indeed, the only one by which order can be preserved among them. Nor do I believe an instance can be pointed to, in which President Santana has been guilty of acts of cruelty or revenge; for, after fully weighing all the circumstances of the late affair, and the various conflicting rumors, charges and assertions, I am forced to the conclusion that he was fully inclined to believe that he has reverted to it to pursue a mild and conciliatory course. With regard to the charge of embezzlement made against the minister, and at one time so currently and universally believed, I confess, that while the evidence against him carefully and attentively examined, it certainly appears exceedingly vague and flimsy. The total amount charged to have been misapplied is plausible and rational; and I am very much mistaken if the result of his trial, or of any corresponding investigation that may be instituted to examine into the matter, will not result in his favorable acquittal. Time will disclose the truth, or otherwise, of these opinions.