The second consul, Don Mariano Roque Alonzo, was a soldier who reckoned many years service in barracks and garrisons. He commanded a corps or battalion of the troops which occupied the capital, when his companions in arms appointed him Commandant-General in the interval between the death of the Dictator and the assembly of Congress. During this short period he maintained public order, and protected the tranquillity of the citizens with zeal and moderation. Like a man of good sense and honour, and of docile character, he at once acknowledged the superiority of his colleague, which of itself is a merit, and always deferred to it, in which he rendered a great service to his country.
In 1844, Congress again assembled, and elected M. Lopez president, a renewal of confidence which his excellent conduct in the interval of years that had elapsed since his first election fully justified; and the same may, of course, be said of his subsequent re-election.
[112] In 1849, when the army of Paraguay gave signs of life by occupying a part of the province of Corrientes, to protect the introduction of a large convoy of military equipments purchased from Brazil by the president, General Rosas, who had laughed at the army of Paraguay, found nothing to oppose to it when it appeared but a defensive attitude. At the present time that army, from its acquirements and discipline, is the envy of the armies of the different nations of South America. A treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, entered into somewhat later with the Brazils, and ratified by the Emperor, revealed the existence of Paraguay to the political world, since this treaty had for its basis the preservation of the nationality of the Oriental State.
The Dictator had a great number of men under arms; but there was no army or any military organization of any kind, and the soldiery was allowed to oppress the other classes. On the other hand, it happened with the military service, as with all other branches of the administration, that there were no other laws nor rules than the capricious will of the Dictator: there was no law to fix the term of service; the private soldiers had already served a long time, and had a right to their discharge. Detachment and garrison duty, even in the remotest parts of the frontiers, was performed without any turn of service or regularity. The troops remained there sometimes as long as fifteen years without being relieved, and without receiving any other assistance or pay than a meagre ration of meat. The consular government gradually allowed these officers and soldiers to retire, and replaced them with 3,000 men, obtained by recruiting. The officers who had served for long periods had small pensions awarded them, and the longest term for the most distant detachments was reduced to three years.
[113] The Dictator died in 1840, at the age of 85, of apoplexy, leaving the country in the most dangerous crisis in which a nation can find itself, that of complete ‘acephalousness’ (being without a head). Exclusively occupied with himself, the Dictator had neither foreseen nor prepared anything for cases so easy to anticipate as illness or death. Nevertheless, there were no parties in Paraguay; neither violent reactions nor disorders have been seen there, which has, with reason, surprised all the world. Nor did the country return to the subjection of Buenos Ayres, which, however, is sufficiently explained by the character of the inhabitants. The moment the Dictator was dead, his ‘actuario,’ (the person through whom all business with Francia was transacted,) who doubtless desired to follow out his system, and succeed him under the name and shadow of some military chiefs, suggested to the four commandants of four of the ‘corps d’armée’ which occupied the capital the idea of self-electing themselves into authority and forming a government. The advice pleased these officers; they added an alcalde to their number, elected the president, and composed a governmental junta, of which the ‘actuario’ made himself secretary. But neither the junta nor the secretary knew how to, or were able to, maintain their footing. The junta itself had been installed but a few days when it decreed the arrest of its own secretary, who knowing well, doubtless, what he deserved, hung himself in prison. The other military chiefs soon made those who formed the junta imperatively feel the necessity of convoking a congress, and of doing so by an authority not confined to theirs. After some hesitation, the natural consequence of the acephalous state of the country, these military chiefs named a ‘Commandant General of Arms,’ without any administrative authority, and with no other attribute than that of convoking a congress within a given time, and of watching in the interval over the maintenance of public order. This new personage did not fail to execute the orders he had received, and convoked a congress in March, 1841, six months after the death of the Dictator. This congress, composed of 500 members, elected directly by universal suffrage, hastened to satisfy the first necessity of Paraguay, that of an authority to take the cause of the country and its administration in hand; and the void, so full of danger to the public weal, was filled up. A government, composed of two consuls, was immediately appointed, and no other obligation was imposed on it than that of ‘maintaining and defending the independence and integrity of the Republic,’ and which it was to swear before being formally inducted into office. Finally, the congress had the wisdom to consider its task to be thus terminated, and it added nothing to the duties of the consuls thus elected than a recommendation to encourage public education, relying for the rest on the conscience and knowledge of these magistrates.
A consular government, composed of two individuals, with identical rights and attributes, but who unavoidably differed in character, ideas, and education, was eminently defective, and carried within itself the germs of great inconveniences and dangers to the State. But, happily, it produced none, thanks to the deference and docility of one magistrate, the prudence and superiority of the other, and the short duration of their term of office, which was but for three years.
During the Dictatorship education had been altogether abandoned; the establishments devoted to instruction had been closed, and their resources diverted to other purposes. Lopez established primary schools, and laid the foundation for a college; and two Jesuits arriving about 1844, one of them took charge of a school for mathematics; but they left the country in 1846.
Religion and public worship, which exercise so much influence on the morality of a people, were suffering much from the want of spiritual advisers. At the death of the Dictator there were only fifty priests in Paraguay, all old, and several verging on decrepitude. Many churches in the country, even in populous parishes, were closed for want of pastors. The consular government hastened to remedy so great an evil: it commenced negotiations with the Holy See, and presented two priests for consecration as bishops; one, as diocesan, and the other as coadjutor. In the meantime it pressed the head of the bishopric to extend to those parishes which were destitute of pastors the jurisdiction of the nearest rectors.
[114] The revenue of Paraguay is derived principally from the duties levied on goods imported and exported, (the former of which ought to be considerably modified, and the latter reduced to almost nothing,) stamped paper, shopkeepers’ licences, the tithe of the produce of the soil, and the ‘half-annaata’ tax (half the value of the waste lands granted by government); but we are, as yet, ignorant of the details, no statistical documents being yet published in the Republic.
There is also, however, another and not inconsiderable branch of revenue, viz.: the monopoly enjoyed by government of the sale of ‘maté,’ or Paraguay tea. It purchases this herb as prepared in the forests of the state, and when well packed and in good condition, at a given price, and disposes of it to the merchants for exportation, as well as to the consumers, at the rate of seven rials per arrobe.