the country will see clearly that native interests will have to submit unconditionally to the conditions imposed upon them by the Yankee buyer. The fruit industry is in similar conditions. Sixty percent of the invested capital is North American: it is the invaders who benefit from the tariff. The most important industry of the country after sugar is currently the hand-made weaving and sewing work. The capital, for the most part, is also North American, the sole beneficiary of free cabotage. It is our women who are exploited by that industry. In honor of the Colonial Legislature, it must be said that it approved a minimum wage law, which directly benefited all workers, men and women, but the Supreme Court of the United States declared it null as it was unconstitutional. Our working women, like the men, are subject to the same vile exploitation by this invading capital, without any political power to counteract that exploitation. That is to say, not even by concept of wages does Puerto Rico derive any benefit from free cabotage. Our working masses are another great mine that the Yankee has found along his path. The so-called Socialist Party of the country has never concerned itself with this problem, the solution to which depends on the political status, but instead of defending the working masses, it has openly sided with the colonial regime, preaching and defending the “permanent solidarity” between Puerto Rico and the United States. As this needle industry has not yet been able to concentrate in a few hands, some Puerto Ricans benefit from free cabotage. How to annul them? is the question that the Government of the colony has formulated. With the apparently laudable purpose of fixing the identification of Puerto Rican products in the United States, the colonial government has had a trademark law approved. Every native product will have to bear the mark designated by the government so that its origin cannot be doubted, and that origin is established only by that mark. Here we see the centralization of this industry in Yankee hands. This measure in the hands of a government of good faith would serve to uplift our industry, but in the hands of a government of bad faith like the one that exists in Puerto Rico, official guarantee will be denied to anyone who is not pleasing to that government or to the interests that that government wants to impose in our country. It is clear that, as the United States absorbs all our foreign trade, imports from other foreign nations will cease and customs revenues, which today amount to the respectable sum of almost three million dollars, will disappear completely. We call the attention of autonomists of good faith to this consequence of free cabotage between the United States and Puerto Rico, which would bring, as a consequence, the loss of important fiscal revenues, as would result if Puerto Rico were annexed as a North American province, “state,” thus suffering all the damages of that political status, without any of the benefits that constitutionally accompany it. In our next article, we will analyze the purposes that inform the law creating the Bureau of Industry and Commerce. In summary, with free cabotage, and a tariff that excludes all foreign competition, our agrarian, industrial, and commercial wealth is left at the mercy of the strongest economic power in the world, which, in addition to its intrinsic financial strength, has retained in its hands all political powers in our country, which will remain defenseless against this invasion unless there is a reaction of intense nationalism that can curb it. TARIFF AUTONOMY The dominant interests, mostly North American, oppose the definition of the political status of the country and defend by all means the system of irresponsible government that prevails, alleging various pretexts, but at the bottom, the opposition of this invisible power is reduced to reasons of an economic nature. If the country is cast as a North American province, “state,” the absolute dominion they have today over colonial agencies and officials ceases. The North American province, “state,” would have legal power, in abstract legal theory, to suppress absenteeism and latifundism, and could end the abuse of imposing the fiscal burden on natives and small landowners, to force them to sell their farms or cede their businesses to North American invading interests, which enjoy the privilege of paying the treasury what suits them and when it suits them. We assume that this power is abstract because we know the strength of the North American plutocracy and how it exploits its own fellow citizens on the continent. Anyone who wants to see pictures of misery should move to Nueva York, to Boston, or to any other North American city. Our working class can expect nothing from the “state” but the continuation of the present exploitation. The political difficulties to extinguish Puerto Rico in a North American province, “state,” are insurmountable, both from the North American point of view and from ours. We are not interested in what the North Americans think about the “state” solution. It is their privilege to determine who can be part of the Yankee family. As for us, suffice it to say that Puerto Ricans are not willing to renounce our inalienable right to constitute ourselves as a free Homeland, at any time or for any reason. Merging our nationality into the North American unity, be it good or bad, is not something that can be seriously considered by those who have a clear concept of what nationality is. Its existence defines our spiritual life spontaneously oriented towards the superior civilization to which we belong, and it is the only guarantee of the material well-being of our people. Only our Republic can feel the needs of the Homeland, and remedy them with the superior interest of making itself worthy of occupying an advanced position in contemporary civilization. These interests know well the impossibility of converting our Homeland into a North American province, “state.” They oppose the propaganda that leads to that, anticipating the possible evil of losing the monopoly of reigning political and material power, because any discussion of the political status necessarily leads to exposing the existing privileges and outrages, and that is to disturb the sleep of those who enrich themselves based on the systematic exploitation of our natural and human wealth. No matter how conceited a monopoly may feel, even if it is backed by the North American force that currently guarantees the exploitation of our Homeland, it loses all tranquility upon receiving the blow of analytical criticism, especially when the system that protects it has almost put it in possession of all Puerto Rican wealth. And that analysis is inevitable when discussing the political status. It is significant that the directors of the pro-North American province, “state,” movement have launched themselves to discredit their own program, propagating the false affirmation that the province, “state,” could not sustain itself economically, appealing to the sordidness of those who have something to lose. Of course, nationalism repudiates this political solution that it considers suicidal, but always sheltered in the truth, it cannot fail to reject an argument without any basis, and that serves only to increase the disorientation that disables the country from leaving the irresponsible colonialism, which is the true purpose pursued by those who launch such a species. It is to be expected that those dominant interests will combat National Independence. In this case, the intention to maintain colonialism becomes absolutely manifest. The country from which they extract enormous wealth annually is presented as poor and worthy of North American charity, which, by the way, has never disembarked on our land. It appears entangled without the possibility of redeeming itself. It is intended to make it depend economically exclusively on the North American market, and as a corollary, they point out that free cabotage would cease upon imposing its own tariffs, thus provoking North American reciprocity, which would determine the ruin of the country. We have accused the government of the colony of tolerating the concealment of assets in the possession of large North American companies, of assessing their assets at low rates, and of allowing them to pay the taxes they want and when it is convenient to their interests. The proportion between the volume of trade of a country and the total value of its property varies very little from nation to nation. The total foreign trade of the United States, exports and imports, amounts to the global sum of ten billion dollars, and the total property amounts to three hundred and eighty billion dollars. The proportion is one to thirty-eight (1:38). The foreign trade of Puerto Rico gives a total of one hundred and seventy-five million and the assessment of the property rises only to about three hundred and fifty million. The proportion of one to two (1:2) And sometimes it has risen from two to three! The total value of property in Puerto Rico cannot be less than fifteen hundred million, and even then the proportion would be one to eight! Even the Instituto Brookings, despite the perversity that inspired it, had to point out that a large part of the assets are either hidden or assessed at a low rate, although it did not want to indicate the truth of the situation. Nothing else could be expected from an institution in charge of glorifying latifundism. And that fact alone is enough to establish that wealth abounds here and that wealth has been hoarded by a few invaders. Therefore, although the country is made to appear poor for the indicated purposes, its bonds are in demand and are quoted at a premium. Bankers cannot be accused of being charitable at any time. Thus, they buy because the nation has more than enough to respond with. It is true that there is misery, but we repeat: this happens exclusively because of the hoarding of wealth. Those who believe that with Independence trade with the United States would cease forget that a large part of our trade was with that country during the Spanish domination. They do not think that international trade obeys the laws of reciprocal needs. Independence guarantees these relations because it avoids the exploitation of one nation by the other. Of course, with the republic, the Yankee monopoly of all our sources of wealth will disappear. Puerto Ricans would then enjoy the right to life, as a nation and as citizens. The fear of independence is the fear of tariff political autonomy. Why do those interests speak of autonomy as a substitute for independence? We will give an answer in our next article. AUTONOMY DESTROYS FREE CABOTAGE The dominant interests do not want the existing irresponsible government to cease. First, because that government is its own instrument to impose itself on the country; and second, because within the regime, free cabotage between Puerto Rico and the United States prevails, which benefits almost exclusively those North American interests that exploit our nation. The employees of these interests, whether they are administrators or lawyers of the same, naturally defend them by all means at their disposal. Their condition as Puerto Ricans helps them to provide that service with some effectiveness. It is from this sector that the propaganda of autonomy has recently departed. They do not present their intentions with due frankness. They do not tell the country that the present situation benefits exclusively their masters and that therefore free cabotage must be maintained. Free cabotage, protected by an invading power that maintains an irresponsible government like the one that exists in Puerto Rico, fosters the greed of exotic interests, because only they will derive the benefits of colonial exploitation. The existing tariff will necessarily give the United States the exclusive of our foreign trade. The government that has been established here will continue to grant fiscal privileges to its corporate interests. With our own money, greater interest in the products of our soil is developed in the United States every day. All this will intensify the greed of those North American interests that see their profits in no way diminished, since the existing free cabotage offers them all the most desirable facilities. It is natural that those who live off those interests, such as the comfort and ease that the ample shares in the profits derived from the exploitation of the Homeland grant, should be alarmed at the threat of a nationalist movement that could put an end to free cabotage and the irresponsible government that has imposed it on the country. We say that it is natural, because in the history of all peoples subjected to foreign exploitation, that native type has always emerged that derives its material prosperity and its moral degeneration from the exploitation of its own country. As autonomy is spoken of, it is good to define this term. In the year 1835, Inglaterra confronted a new revolution in North America: with the revolution of Canadá. The enemies of the revolutionaries alleged the usual arguments: that the movement was due to discontented men, full of prejudices, religious and racial, since the majority of the population was then of French and indigenous origin who professed the Catholic religion; and as the metropolis was Protestant and English, a mutual understanding was not possible. Great Britain did not want to repeat with Canadá the stubbornness that cost it the Independence of Estados Unidos. It immediately sent a high commissioner to investigate on the ground the causes of the events. Such a delicate mission fell to the eminent statesman Lord Durham. After a thorough investigation, he informed the British Government that there was no such racial or religious conflict; that in Canadá Catholics and Protestants, French and English, had rebelled against the government, and that the only ones who backed the government were a tiny minority that intended to dominate the entire country using all official influence for its own benefit. Lord Durham made the declaration of the wise political apothegm that all irresponsible government is terrible. He recommended in his luminous report that a government exclusively responsible to that nation be immediately established in Canadá; that all power of the British parliament over Canadian affairs cease; that relations between Great Britain and Canadá be regulated on the basis of treaties of equal to equal; and so that harmony between the two nationalities would persist, Canadá would recognize the “personal” sovereignty of the King of Inglaterra, whose representative, the Viceroy, would reign, and not govern, thus strictly following the principle of parliamentary government, that the Executive can act only through its ministers, who necessarily have to be responsible to the parliament that retains all governmental powers. Did Canadá obtain independence? Tariff autonomy entails the power of free contracting, that is, of making treaties freely with other powers, Canadá immediately ended the monopoly that Inglaterra exercised over its foreign trade by virtue of restrictive laws. Canadian Legislation in tariff matters soon put English merchandise at a disadvantage in the Canadian market. With the celebration of commercial treaties with other powers, Canadá acts on the basis of mutual reciprocity and therefore, currently, by virtue of treaties between the Canadian domain and Estados Unidos, the products of the latter country compete with advantage in the Canadian market with similar English products, to the serious detriment of the British economy. The same situation has been created for Great Britain by recognizing governments with equal powers to the Canadian in Australia, Africa del Sur, Nueva Zelandia, and the Estado Libre de Irlanda. The British economy worsens every day with the international competition of the dominions that were of Great Britain and that today enjoy international statute as sovereigns, on the basis of equality with the Mother Patria and that appear in all international centers such as the Liga de las Naciones enjoying their own sovereignty and linked to each other and with the Mother Patria, by the “personal” sovereignty of the King of Inglaterra, a link that will exist as long as the British and Dominion Sovereign respects the created statute. Thus the British Empire is officially called the Commonwealth of British Nations which do not recognize the sovereignty of one over the other, and feel united only by the ties of the crown. Great Britain as a nation has lost all interference over those dominions and in turn, the English Crown has gained in prestige. The economic situation of Great Britain is currently so precarious, due, among other factors, to the commercial and industrial competition of the dominions, that the great contemporary thinkers of that country, among them the head of the Conservative Party, Stanley Baldwin, and the great publicist Lord Beaverbrook, are committed to fostering a common tariff in all the nations of the Empire and free cabotage between them. But the dominions are definitively opposed to that plan because political autonomy has significance if it is accompanied by tariff autonomy, which carries with it the right to make commercial treaties with whomever it best interests. The struggle for political autonomy has always been a struggle for tariff autonomy and the right of free contracting with other nations. The tariff rate not only determines an easy and effective method for raising funds for the treasury but also fixes the trade and industry of the country, and the expansion they may have in the international market. In a word, tariff power regulates the most vital interests of nationality. This is said for those who speak of autonomy in good faith. Within the Constitution in force in Estados Unidos that regime cannot be implemented in Puerto Rico. This is a problem of Constitutional Law that we will analyze in our next article. Those who speak of autonomy only for the purpose of disorienting the opinion of their country, so that the present state of affairs does not change, so that free cabotage between Estados Unidos and Puerto Rico and the continuation of the privileges enjoyed by the invading interests persist, have never thought about the meaning of the term autonomy. To distinguish those who use this term in good faith and those who use it in bad faith, the public opinion of the country demands them to say what they understand by autonomy. AUTONOMY IS NOT POSSIBLE WITHIN THE NORTH AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL REGIME We have been asked if by virtue of the Autonomic Constitution of Puerto Rico put into force by the crown of España, if the country enjoyed the tariff Independence that Canadá enjoys. We have established that the struggle for autonomy aims to acquire customs independence as the regulatory power of collective economic life. In article 39 of said constitution this power is expressly consigned. Here is the text: “It shall also be the responsibility of the Insular Parliament to form the duties to be paid by merchandise, both upon its importation into the insular territory and upon its exportation from the same.” Currently Puerto Rico cannot do either one thing or the other. Estados Unidos does not have the frankness of other imperial powers to declare its intention to monopolize the market of the nations subjected to its will by force. But it imposes its tariff, which is practically prohibitive for the entry of products from other foreign nations; it imposes free cabotage between these nations subjected and the empire that subjugates them; and it strictly prohibits the colonial governments that these nationalities have to suffer from taxing imports or exports. Therein lies the key to the terrible exploitation suffered by Puerto Rico and Filipinas under the domination of Estados Unidos. As tariff independence carries with it the power to make international trade treaties, the steps to be followed are specified in the same autonomic constitution. But since this question is so vital, the first commercial treaty between Puerto Rico and España is emptied in the same constitution. Here are its terms: “Article 40: As a transition from the current regime to the one now established and without prejudice to what the two governments may agree upon in their day, mercantile relations between the peninsula and the Isla de Puerto Rico shall be governed by the following provisions: 1a. - No duty, whether or not of a fiscal nature, and whether established for importation or exportation, may be differential to the detriment of insular or peninsular production. 2a. - The two governments shall form a list of articles of direct national origin, to which a differential duty shall be assigned by common agreement on their similar articles of foreign origin. In another analogous list, formed by the same procedure, the products of direct insular origin that are to receive privileged treatment upon their entry into the peninsula and the type of differential duties shall be determined. This differential duty shall in no case exceed thirty-five percent for both origins. If in the formation of both lists and in the fixing of protective duties there is conformity between the two governments, the lists shall be put into force immediately. If there is disagreement, the resolution of the litigious point shall be submitted to a commission of Deputies of the Reino, formed by equal parts of Puerto Ricans and peninsulars. This commission shall appoint its President: if no agreement is reached on his appointment, the oldest shall preside. The President shall have a casting vote. 3a. The valuation tables relating to the articles enumerated in the two lists mentioned in the preceding number shall be fixed by common agreement and shall be reviewed contradictorily every two years. The modifications that it is appropriate to make in the tariff duties in view of this shall be carried out immediately by the respective governments”. A group has emerged that is currently called autonomist. They wish to maintain free cabotage between Estados Unidos and Puerto Rico. We must tell them that there is no autonomy where the imperial power forcibly maintains free cabotage, between itself and the nations subjected to its will by force, as is the case of Puerto Rico. We have to congratulate them for their nonconformity with the current political status of irresponsible government that prevails in Puerto Rico. Now, if they aspire to autonomy, and of course, to Puerto Rico enjoying tariff Independence, and Independence to make commercial treaties, whether these harm or do not harm Estados Unidos, it is clear and definitive, that such a thing is not possible within the North American constitutional regime. We understand that the autonomists do not want the empire of Estados Unidos over Puerto Rico to cease for reasons that at this moment do not interest us. Their autonomic aspiration is not possible under the flag of Estados Unidos. The creation of the classic type of autonomy is due to monarchical regimes, of Inglaterra and of España. The constitution of the monarchy has enjoyed sufficient elasticity to allow the recognition of autonomic governments without the complete separation of the empire, maintaining over the autonomic nationality the personal sovereignty of the imperial monarch as a vital link of relations between it and the metropolis. Inglaterra, upon recognizing the autonomy of the nationalities that were its dominions, deprived them of representation in its own parliament, definitively ending the interference of its own parliament in the affairs of the nationalities whose autonomy it had just recognized. España retained in the cortes the representation of Cuba and Puerto Rico after having recognized their autonomy. In both cases, however, tariff Independence is recognized and, as a corollary, Independence to make commercial treaties. This power, to be effective, must be irrevocable. Thus, article two of the additional articles of the autonomic constitution of Puerto Rico provides, which reads as follows: “Once the present constitution for the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico has been approved by the cortes of the Reino, it may not be modified except by virtue of a law and at the request of the Insular Parliament. The powers recognized by the Madre Patria obliged all foreign powers, because the recognition of an international statute by the Madre Patria is the most perfect recognition, which obliges third powers and grants them the rights of contracting with the new entity that begins to figure in the international concert. Where does sovereignty reside in a State, using this term in its true sense, if it is
In the monarch or in the nation, it is not a topic of discussion in the Republic. In this latter system of government it is assumed that the sovereign is the nation. This consideration does not prevent a Republic that exercises dominion over another nationality from recognizing the autonomy of the latter. This depends, however, on the constitution of the imperial Republic. Under the American constitution, there are provincial governments; called state and the federal government which has the power to govern without any responsibility to the territories or nations that fall under the dominion of Estados Unidos. The American province has no international statute, but within the constitution, the central government has to respect its rights, because it enjoys the constitutional statute that guarantees the existence of all bodies created by the constitution, such as the Congreso Nacional, the Tribunal Supremo and the Presidencia. As the constitution can be amended by the sole sovereign, that is, El Pueblo de Estados Unidos, the powers of the province, “state,” can be modified when the sovereign so determines within the procedures established in the constitution. Likewise, the powers of the Presidencia del Congreso, and of the Tribunal Supremo can be modified. If the sovereign resolved to destroy the present provincial organization, called state, and replace it with any other, of course, it could do so. The same can be said regarding the modification of the powers or existence of any national body. National bodies are obliged to exercise the powers granted to them in the constitution. These powers are duties that must be fulfilled. Thus the Congreso de Estados Unidos has the duty to govern the territories and nations under conquest without being responsible to the governed in any way. Any law they approve for a territory or possession is revocable at any time, in whole or in part by the same Congress or by another successive Congress. Any power granted to the governments of the territories is in their capacity as agents of the national power, and therefore any resolution or territorial law can be annulled in whole or in part, at any time by the Congreso Nacional. The American constitution grants tariff power to the Congress. The tariffs are uniform. The same types prevail in the provinces “states”, as in the territories, possessions, or nations subjected to dominion such as Puerto Rico and Filipinas. The Congress could not in any case grant the tariff power irrevocably to Puerto Rico, because as we have said, any statute of that legislative body is subject to revocation or amendment by the same. It has been argued that within the constitution a federal statute may be practically irrevocable, although constitutionally, it is revocable at any time. And as proof, it has been pointed out that not only does the desuetude of rights of the Congress exist, but also the desuetude of constitutional rights. As proof of this assertion, we are presented with the case of the desuetude of political rights in the south of Estados Unidos. Here are more than sixteen million American citizens who, for the sole reason of carrying African blood in their veins, have been deprived of the electoral vote, although the constitution expressly prohibits that a citizen be deprived of the exercise of suffrage for considerations of race. With this example, it could be deduced that, if the Congress approves a law granting a power to one of the terrorists, such a law, due to its importance, could be respected by the same Congress subsequently or by other Congresses that succeed it. The unusual case of depriving more than sixteen million citizens of the electoral right, in open and frank opposition to the constitution itself, is explained, however, by the barbaric prejudice that exists in Estados Unidos in racial matters. The opinion of the dominant elements of that nation in this matter is almost unanimous. No one in the Congress or in the Presidencia or in the Tribunal Supremo of that country, has insisted that the electoral right of those who carry African blood in their veins be respected.