THE AFFAIRS OF HAITI. T HE ugly stories which have come
from Haiti in the last few days describe a state of affairs which is re- current in that beautiful but unhappy island. As usual there was a revolutionary conspiracy, and as usual the conspirators, when the plot leaked out, fled to the Consulates for sanctuary. Should the Consulates be asylums ?—that is a question which is disputed between the Government and the foreign representatives whenever there is a plot in Haiti. The Consuls feel as strongly as they do about the absolute sanctity of their buildings for humane reasons. It may not be technically defen- sible for them to shelter intriguers against the Govern- ment who are citizens of the Republic, but all etiquette must go by the board when it is known that suspected persons if delivered up will be killed without trial. More- over, though nearly every Haitian Ministry demands that the Consuls should surrender their right of offering asylum because it wishes to get at its enemies more easily, it must have a compensating conviction in the back of its mind that any member of the Government may any day want that shelter himself, if not while he is in office, at least when he is once more in opposition. The recent rush to the Consulates was caused quite unexpectedly by the summary execution of, it is said, twenty-seven alleged conspirators. All the winter the usual political rumblings of the Negro Republic of Haiti have threatened to develop into an earthquake, but when the revolution was said to have been checked a few weeks ago it was supposed that the danger had passed. A few plotters even then went to the French and German Con- sulates—the American Consul had been instructed not to receive them, and Britain is apparently unrepresented—but the majority remained, unsuspecting though suspected, in their homes. Last Sunday, however, the new Minister of the Interior suddenly decided that the action of his colleagues was not strong enough. He had the chief suspected persons dragged from their beds and shot between three and four in the morning. Then the Consulates became crowded with refugees who were implicated in the plot, if plot there were, or who had any reason to think they might be suspected ; and the Consuls proposed the familiar expedient of embarking them, so that they might leave the country, and the popular excitement might be calmed. President Nord Alexis, as was expected, demanded the surrender of the refugees, and the Consuls, who as usual refused, feared an attack on their buildings until American, French, and British cruisers arrived. It seems that the firing of a gun by the Indefatigable opportunely stopped the summary execution of another suspect, as the executioners fled in panic. On Wednesday the Government decided after all to let the refugees in the Consulates at Gonaives, St. Marc, and Port de Paix leave the country, but reserved the right to prosecute in the Courts persons who in future are concerned in revolutions, —a right which no one could dispute. That suspects should be tried instead of being summarily shot is a doctrine worthy of all encouragement if there is more than a nominal difference between the two processes. If ever there should be a guarantee of a fair trial, the Consuls, we imagine, would no longer insist on putting themselves to the inconvenience of entertaining innumerable refugees. General Firmin, the leader of the alleged conspiracy, is among those who have been allowed to escape. Thus for the time it seems that comparative quiet is restored.
The United States has a more natural interest in Haiti than any other Power, and her policy is to let the Haitians work out their salvation, or the substitute for it, iu their own violent way. If the United States has no reason for intervention, other countries have still less ; if European troops were once landed in that treacherous climate, and penetrated the mountainous interior, there would be no saying how or when an occupation would end. And even if the Monroe Doctrine did not apply to such places as Haiti, European intervention there would certainly collide with the feeling which makes that doctrine so dear to Americans. We hope that danger to Europeans will not force us to set foot in Haiti or San Domingo. The Consuls must be supported in every possible way in securing the safety of their nationals, and there our duty ends. If they can retain in addition their right to give sanctuary to Haitians or Dominicans, so much the better, for we are heartily in favour of humanity being allowed to override all the formal theories on which the Consulates are established. Haiti and San Domingo are very nearly reductions ad absurdum of government passing into hands unfit for it ; and they would be wholly so if their history did not remind us that ability and bravery have emerged at least once in negro leadership, and conceivably might do so again. When the Spanish exterminated the aboriginals of the island of Haiti, and introduced negroes from Africa in order that they might have new slaves, they provoked a fearful Nemesis. The negroes multiplied and inflicted on their European masters sufferings and labours which were only reprisals that had been fairly courted for generations. The story of Haiti is one of the most astonishing and pitiful in the world. But it was not only the slaves who overturned Governments in Haiti. Long before the negro revolts the famous buccaneers—Frenchmen and English- men—retired from Haiti to the neighbouring island of Tortuga, and conspired against the Spanish rulers. It was they who founded the French colony of St. Domingue in the eastern part of Haiti, and it was the crushed lower strata of that polity which were inspired by the fever of the French Revolution. As the buccaneers had rebelled against the Spaniards, so did the blacks rebel against the buccaneers. Toussaint l'Ouverture, the leader of the blacks, in a war of amazing relentlessness and barbarity made him- self master of the colony, and eventually became, through odd vicissitudes of fortune, Commander-in-Chief of the French army. Napoleon decided to restore slavery, and the ex- slave resisted Napoleon's agent, Leclerc, and his twenty- thousand men to the utmost of his ability. It was only Leclerc's treachery which brought Toussaint l'Ouverture at last into the hands of the French. If Toussaint chastised his former masters with whips, his successor, Dessalines, chastised them with scorpions ; the cruelties were incredible. But the negroes, aided indirectly by the coming and going of the British Fleet, triumphed, and the French evacuated the island. The sequel was a grotesque confusion in which black tyrants appeared for brief periods, calling themselves President or King according to their fancy. At last Boyer became real master of the French part of the island, the Spaniards having meanwhile re- established themselves at the eastern end. But Boyer conquered Santo Domingo, as the St. Domingue of the buccaneers had been renamed by the Spaniards, and ruled all the island till he was expelled in 1843. On his departure the island fell asunder into the two Republics of Haiti and San Domingo, which remain to this moment, in spite of the temporary rise to power of at least one negro Emperor.
The present writer when in Haiti was impressed by the wonderful agricultural value of the land. The valleys are rich as only valleys can be that have the fertilising deposits of mountains swept down into them by the rains. But the methods of the farmers and fruit-growers are backward and lazy, and they are strangled by the perversity of the Govern- ment. The import trade is throttled by impossible duties, and only cheap, tawdry articles and bad, highly coloured clothes tempt the people to pay the necessary prices. In Haiti the population of African descent is far more numerous than in San Domingo. In Haiti debased French is spoken; in most parts of San Domingo bad Spanish, though everywhere the mixed breeds are more Spanish than French. The names are nearly all French. The present writer happened to attend a parade of troops at Cap Haitian a few years ago, and observed that the officers were birds-of-paradise for finery and bright colours. To the barbaric eye these things are no doubt irresistible. During the march a soldier fell out of the ranks to talk to some friends at the door of a neighbouring house. An officer beckoned to him, but he refused to return. Two men were sent to bring him by force, but being resisted by some women, who pulled the renegade in the opposite direction, they failed. The officer then went himself, and by beating the culprit with his sheathed sword in the midst of a furious but diverting mêlée, he contrived to detach him from his friends. Meanwhile the army had halted, and did not continue its march till the beaten, but by no means disgraced, soldier had been restored to his place in the ranks. The troops marched to a spot near the prison, and the General then performed his Sunday morning task of inspecting the inmates. He sat on a fat pony under the shade of a tree, while the prisoners thrust their heads between iron bars, struggling with one another for advantageous places, and begged for release. He pointed to two or three, and in this arbitrary manner mercy was dispensed and the inspection ended. The prison was a filthy stone yard, and the prisoners were apparently fed by charity. Those who were not strong enough for the Sunday morning struggle at the bars, or deft at catching the official eye, had a good chance of remaining there indefinitely. An American told the writer that he had been imprisoned there himself. His crime was " incendiarism." He ex- plained that he had not been guilty of it, and did not know how the charge had arisen ; but as he conceived that there was some reason at the back of it, and experience had shown him that it was more profitable to humour than to resist the authorities, he accepted the penalty and spent six days in the prison. " You see," be said laughingly, " it was part of my business. I make my money out of these people." Those who choose to live in Haiti presumably do so with their eyes open, because they find it worth while, like that American. Such incidents as those of the last few days remind the whole world occasionally of what the conditions are. We wonder whether San Domingo, of which we have heard little or nothing lately, is becoming more settled than the sister- Republic. A President has not been assassinated there, we believe, since 1899. It was a similar fact which made the head of the opposition in a South American Republic exclaim " that lack of, interest in public affairs is the curse of this unhappy country."
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