Under this Constitution there was for a long time less disorder. In Colombia political hatreds are, however, incredibly virulent and persistent because party differences are fundamental and irreconcilable. The clericals regard their opponents as pestilent enemies of religion and order, and the liberals anathematise the ruling party as a reactionary, corrupt, and benighted oligarchy. The exiled liberals have made repeated efforts to regain power, and the administrations have not been able to avoid a constantly mounting national expenditure and the continuation of deficits and repudiation. In 1899, a formidable insurrection, aided from Venezuela, broke out, President Sanclemente was imprisoned, and in 1900 Vice-President Marroquin assumed the executive functions. This terrible civil war ended only in November, 1902, when the insurgents surrendered their fleet and stores. President Marroquin and the conservative government seem now firmly established, backed as they are by the tremendous influence of the Church among the masses. The people are returning to their usual avocations, though business has been demoralised by the stupendous depreciation of the paper currency.
The vast expenditures of the French canal company boomed Panama, but the resulting prosperity was confined to the Isthmus. The Bogotá government hoped for a great increase of income when the canal should be completed, and the abandonment of the enterprise was a disappointment. The principal subject of public preoccupation during 1903 was the negotiation with the United States concerning the permission desired by the latter to continue the work. Colombia proper has its outlet down the Magdalena to the Caribbean, and therefore has no greater special commercial interest in the building of a canal than Venezuela, Guiana, or Cuba, but the Colombians of the continent regarded the possession of the isolated Isthmian region as their most valuable national birthright, and believed that this invaluable strategic position should be used so as to obtain the utmost possible advantages for the Bogotá government as well as for the people of Panama. The revenue from the Panama railway had been one of the important sources of government income and the ruling political classes considered that they were entitled to have this income largely increased if a canal was built.
The special congress summoned to consider the treaty already signed by the executive failed to ratify the agreement and adjourned, after empowering the president to try and negotiate a new one which would give Colombia a larger bonus and revenue. But the rejection of the treaty was followed by a declaration of independence on the part of the people of Panama, who believed that the United States would pay no larger sum than that already agreed upon and who saw their own interests being sacrificed for the sake of a far-distant interior region with which they had few commercial ties and whence invasion and coercion need not be feared because of the lack of practicable routes of communication. The United States and other powers promptly recognised the new nation, which at once made a canal treaty similar to that rejected by the Bogotá congress.
At Bogotá the first impression was one of profound dismay. The executive offered to declare martial law, suspend the Constitution, and ratify the rejected treaty in spite of the Senate. General Reyes, the foremost living Colombian, immediately departed for Panama as a special envoy to endeavour to persuade the people there to return to their allegiance, but his overtures were rejected, and he went to Washington on the hopeless errand of inducing the United States Government temporarily to abandon its policy of forbidding fighting on the Isthmus, so that Colombia might reduce the people of Panama to obedience. Meanwhile many Colombians blamed the Marroquin administration for the irreparable loss of Panama and ten million badly needed dollars. Some popular demonstrations occurred, and the hot-headed demanded that war be declared against the United States and an army marched across the Atrato swamps to attack Panama from the land. But the financial and topographical difficulties were so evidently insurmountable that the war talk soon died down, the demonstrations against the Government ceased, and most elements seem to have acquiesced in the election of General Reyes to the presidential term which begins in 1904. It will be under his able guidance that Colombia will start on the tedious road leading to internal peace and regeneration, to financial rehabilitation, and to the reconcilement of those fierce factions whose wars have drenched their country's soil with blood for so many decades.
PANAMA
