monopoly of the reigning political and material power, because every discussion of the political status necessarily leads to exposing the existing privileges and abuses, and that is to deprive of sleep those who enrich themselves on the basis of the systematic exploitation of our natural and human wealth. However 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 jolt of analytical criticism, especially when the system that protects it has almost placed it in possession of all of 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 assertion 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 these dominant interests will combat National Independence. In this case the intention to maintain colonialism becomes absolutely manifest. They present the country from which they extract enormous riches annually as poor and worthy of North American charity, which, incidentally, has never disembarked on our land. It appears entangled without 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 goods in the possession of large North American companies, of assessing their goods at low rates, and of allowing them to pay the contributions 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 Estados Unidos, 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 property rises only to some three hundred and fifty million. The proportion is one to two (1:2) And sometimes it has risen from two to three! The total value of the property in Puerto Rico cannot be less than one billion five hundred million and still 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 goods 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 of an institution in charge of glorifying latifundismo. And let that fact suffice to establish that wealth abounds here and that this wealth is hoarded by a few invaders. That is why, 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 enough to respond with. It is true that there is misery, but we repeat: this happens exclusively due to the hoarding of wealth. Those who believe that trade with Estados Unidos would cease with Independence 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 political tariff autonomy. Why do these interests speak of autonomy as a substitute for independence? We will answer in our next article. 118 AUTONOMY DESTROYS FREE CABOTAGE The dominant interests do not want the existing irresponsible government to cease. First, because that government is their own instrument to impose themselves on the country; and second, because within the regime free cabotage prevails between Puerto Rico and Estados Unidos, which benefits almost exclusively those North American interests that exploit our nation. The employees of these interests, whether 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 is why 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 to them will the benefits of colonial exploitation come. The existing tariff will necessarily give Estados Unidos the exclusive of our foreign trade. The government that they have established here will continue to grant fiscal privileges to their corporate interests. With our own money, an ever greater interest in the products of our soil is developing in Estados Unidos. All this will intensify the greed of those North American interests that see their profits not diminished by any concept, since the existing free cabotage offers them all the most desirable facilities. It is natural that for those who live off these interests, as the comfort and ease granted by the fat participations in the profits derived from the exploitation patria are alarmed by 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 the peoples subjected to foreign exploitation, there has always arisen that native type 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, England was confronted with a new revolution in North America: with the revolution of Canada. The enemies of the revolutionaries alleged the usual arguments: that the movement was due to discontented men, full of prejudice, 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, mutual understanding was not possible. Great Britain did not want to repeat with Canada 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 on 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 Canada Catholics and Protestants, French and English, had rebelled against the government, and that the only ones who supported the government were a very small minority that intended to dominate the entire country using all official influence for their 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 Canada; that all power of the British parliament over Canadian affairs cease; that relations between Great Britain and Canada be regulated on the basis of treaties of equal to equal; and so that harmony would persist between the two nationalities, Canada 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 only act through its ministers, who necessarily have to be responsible to the parliament that retains all governmental powers. Canada obtained tariff independence, which implies the power of free contracting, that is, to make treaties freely with other powers, Canada immediately ended the monopoly that Inglaterra exercised over its foreign trade by virtue of restrictive laws. Canadian legislation on tariffs did not take long to put English merchandise at a disadvantage in the Canadian market. With the celebration of commercial treaties with other powers, Canada acts on the basis of mutual reciprocity and that is why currently, by virtue of treaties between the Canadian dominion 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 powers equal to the Canadian in Australia, South Africa, Nueva Zelandia, and the Estado Libre de Irlanda. The British economy is getting worse every day with the international competition of the dominions that were of Great Britain and that today enjoy international status as sovereign, on the basis of equality with the Madre 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 to the Madre Patria, by the “personal” sovereignty of the King of Inglaterra, a link that will exist as long as the British Sovereign and the Dominions respect the created statute. Thus the British Empire is officially called the Community of British Nations that 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 return, 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 leader of the Partido Conservador, Stanley Baldwin and the great publicist Lord Beaverbrook are committed to promoting 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 meaning if it is accompanied by tariff autonomy that 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 not only determines an easy and effective method to raise 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 with 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 persists and the continuation of the privileges enjoyed by the invading interests, 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. 121 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 effect by the crown of España, the country enjoyed the tariff Independence that Canada enjoys. We have established that the struggle for autonomy has the purpose of acquiring 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 will also be the responsibility of the Insular Parliament to draw up the rights to be paid by merchandise, both upon its importation into the insular territory and upon its exportation from it”. Currently Puerto Rico can do neither one thing nor 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 subjected nations and the empire that subjugates them; and they strictly prohibit the colonial governments that these nationalities must suffer, from taxing importation or exportation. 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 procedures to be followed are specified in the same autonomic constitution. But being this question so vital, in the same constitution the first commercial treaty between Puerto Rico and España is emptied. 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 due course, mercantile relations between the peninsula and the Isla de Puerto Rico shall be governed by the following provisions: 1a. No right, whether or not of a fiscal nature, and whether it is established for importation or exportation may be differential to the detriment of insular or peninsular production. 2a. A list of articles of direct national origin shall be formed by the two governments, to which a differential right over their similar articles of foreign origin shall be assigned by common agreement. In another analogous list, formed by the same procedure, the products of direct insular origin that shall receive privileged treatment upon their entry into the peninsula and the type of differential rights shall be determined. 122 This differential right in no case shall exceed thirty-five percent for both origins. If in the formation of both lists and in the fixing of protective rights there is agreement between the two governments, the lists shall be put into effect immediately. If there is disagreement, the resolution of the litigious point shall be submitted to a commission of Deputies of the Kingdom, formed by equal parts of Puerto Ricans and peninsulars. This commission shall appoint its President: if there is no agreement on his appointment, the oldest one 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 previous number shall be fixed by common agreement and shall be reviewed contradictorily every two years. The modifications that in their view should be made in the tariff rights shall be carried out immediately by the respective governments”. A group that calls itself autonomist currently has arisen. They wish to maintain free cabotage between Estados Unidos and Puerto Rico. We must tell them that autonomy does not exist where the imperial power forcibly maintains free cabotage, between it and the nations subjected to its will by force, as is the case of Puerto Rico. We must 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, that Puerto Rico enjoys tariff Independence, and Independence to make commercial treaties, whether these harm or do not harm Estados Unidos, it is clear and conclusive, that such a thing is not possible within the North American constitutional regime. We understand that the autonomists want the empire of Estados Unidos over Puerto Rico not to cease for reasons that do not interest us at this moment. 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 when 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 courts the representation of Cuba and Puerto Rico after having recognized their autonomy. In both cases, however, tariff Independence and corollary, Independence to make treaties 123 commercial are recognized. This power to be effective has to be irrevocable. This is what 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 courts of the Kingdom, 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 appear in the international concert. Where sovereignty resides in a Estado, using this term in its true sense, whether it is in the monarch or in the nation, 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 empire over another nationality from recognizing the autonomy of the latter. This depends, however, on the constitution of the imperial Republic. Under the North American constitution, there are provincial governments; called estaduales and the federal government that has the power to govern without any responsibility the territories or nations that fall under the empire of Estados Unidos. The North American province has no international status, but within the constitution, the central government has to respect its rights, because it enjoys the constitutional status that guarantees the existence of all the organisms created by the constitution, such as the Congreso Nacional, the Tribunal Supremo and the Presidencia. As the constitution can be amended by the only sovereign, that is, The Pueblo de Estados Unidos, the powers of the province, “state”, can be modified when the sovereign so disposes within the procedures established in the constitution. Similarly, 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 estadual and substitute it for any other, of course, it could do so. The same can be said regarding the modification of the powers or existence of any national organism. National organisms are obliged to exercise the faculties that are granted to them in the constitution. These faculties 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 that 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, 124 Any power that is granted to the governments of the territories is in their character as mandataries of the national power, and that is why any resolution or territorial law can be annulled in whole or in part, at any time by the national Congress. The North American constitution grants tariff power to the Congress. Tariffs are uniform. The same types govern in the provinces “states”, as in the territories, possessions, or nations subjected to the empire like Puerto Rico and Filipinas. The Congress could not in any case grant tariff power irrevocably to Puerto Rico, because as we have said, every statute of said legislative body is subject to revocation or amendment by the same. It has been alleged that within the constitution a federal statute can be practically irrevocable, although constitutionally, it is revocable at any time. And as proof, it has been pointed out that not only does the disuse of rights of the Congress exist but also the disuse of constitutional rights. As proof of this assertion, we are presented with the case of the disuse of political rights in the south of Estados Unidos. Here are more than sixteen million North American citizens who, for the sole fact 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 transcendence, 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 frank and open 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. 125 That could be repeated in Puerto Rico with the benefit of those who exercise the omnimoda influence in Estados Unidos, if our country is founded in a province “state”, of the North American nation. All the elements of pure African blood ours or mestizos could be deprived, with the consent of the central power, of suffrage. Granting tariff independence to Puerto Rico, while Estados Unidos exercises empire over our nationality, is an economic question, of greater transcendence for the dominating nation than the racial question. When the thirteen original states merged under the present constitution, they constituted the sovereignty, called the Pueblo de Estados Unidos, were reduced to provinces of the new sovereign, and forcibly lost the tariff independence that they had enjoyed during the brief period of the confederation. The tariff front is uniform, the same in the provinces, “state”, as in the territories. Neither directly nor indirectly has any national political division been allowed to intervene in the exercise of this power, which is a symbol, by itself alone, of national unity. Asking that Estados Unidos amend its enjoyment of tariff independence, while that right is expressly denied to the same “states”, provinces, and to the other territories, is to fall into one of those dreams of those who do not have the courage to exercise their own inalienable right to Independence. It goes without saying that Puerto Rico could not have the corollary power to tariff independence, that is, the power to make commercial treaties. It must be pointed out, for greater clarity, that the powers that the Congreso de Estados Unidos has granted to the territorial governments have always been interpreted by the courts in a restrictive sense as any ordinary mandate. And it is also to be noted that the Congreso de Estados Unidos, instead of expanding powers granted to a
territorial government, has always sought to restrict them by subsequent legislation. That is why the continental territories sought to escape the territorial condition imposed on them by an irresponsible government of Congress, in many cases, appealing to violence against the federal authorities that the central government sent from Washington to govern their destinies. There are two ways to escape the absolute dominion of Congress: to become a province, “state,” or to establish the Independent Republic. Within the North American nation, the province, “state,” as happens in all constitutions, lacks any tariff power whatsoever. In order for Puerto Rico to exercise its tariff independence and the power to make commercial treaties, it must constitute itself as an Independent Republic. THE PROTECTORATE IS AN AGGRESSION To establish Autonomy, and with it Tariff Independence, and the power to make commercial treaties, it would be necessary for the United States to recognize the Independence of Puerto Rico, and then burden it with limitations that would reduce the exercise of sovereign powers to the limits of the Autonomic status. We have been asked if this political solution should not satisfy the legitimate demands to constitute the Republic. In other words, it is inquired whether the Republic should be established with the protectorate of the United States. The term protectorate, the declarations of guarantee of Independence, the assurances to firmly maintain the internal regime, etc., are the promises that strong powers generally make to impose servitude on nations that enjoy the recognition of their Independence, with the purpose of acquiring strategic positions in their territories and acquiring a privileged position in their economic development. Territorial integrity cannot be violated either directly or indirectly, without compromising political Independence and economic Independence. This grave danger is not imposed by third powers but by the nation that declares itself a protector. Those who have no notion of national unity, be it territorial or spiritual, do not see the consequences of making concessions of national patrimony to foreign powers. The establishment of coaling stations, naval bases, centers of cable or wireless communication, etc., is not permitted by any country, without the imposition of immediate and irreducible force, whatever the pretensions of the power that requests concessions, which endanger the very life of nationality. Nation protected, nation attacked by the supposed protector. Such is the aphorism of international life. To make territorial concessions of the nature we have described is to sanction in advance the military and naval coercion of the power that intends to direct the Homeland’s destinies, with the aggravating factors that this aggressor is allowed to accumulate troops and war material in the native hearth itself. Faced with the “protector,” the protectorate is always defenseless. The constant presence of an army and a fleet in the territory of the protectorate is only to intimidate it or to mobilize them against its rivals in imperialist ambitions. When the “protector” is at war, the protectorate is necessarily a zone of operations. Territorial concessions, whether ad perpetuam or for a determined time, are considered by the enemies of the “protector” as territory of their own and subject to attack, occupation and even annexation. As the “protected” nation is an obligatory ally of the “protector,” 127 it is considered a belligerent and as such a victim of all the contingencies of war, which may cost indemnities, fiscal interventions, and even cession of territory. It is not strange that no nation wants to accept protectorates, and, that all the nations subjected to such a dangerous imposition, fight tenaciously to recover their full Independence. The protectorate chains the “protected” nation to the international policy of its “protector,” but always to its detriment. The international conditions that favor the “protector,” it exploits them for its exclusive convenience. When these same conditions harm it, it uses the protectorate as war booty. There are currently two nations on our continent that enjoy independence under the protectorate of the United States: Cuba and Panamá. Cuba, under the permanent treaty called the Platt Amendment, had to cede to the United States the Guantánamo naval base and the right to intervene to ensure a stable government in the Republic that provides sufficient guarantees to natives and foreigners. It is worth examining how the United States imposed the Platt Amendment on Cuba… The Cuban revolution had triumphed when the United States saw the need to intervene for reasons of “humanity” in the war between the great Antille and the Motherland. This intervention was considered an act of generosity by the unsuspecting who did not know the intentions of North American policy. It was believed that the Independence of Cuba and Puerto Rico was assured. The Treaty of Paris, however, established something very different: the annexation of Puerto Rico to the United States and the Independence of Cuba under the Platt Amendment. Despite its noble declarations, the government of the United States, upon entering the war, disregarded the personality of the Cuban revolutionary government and its army. It refused to deal with the legitimate representatives of Cuban sovereignty. And it assumed that there was only one sovereignty in Cuba: the Spanish one. This attitude disconcerted the Cuban patricians. A government, a liberating army, and a nationality in arms, found themselves without recognition before these supposed protectors. They made it understood to Cuba, in the most express way, that its Independence depended exclusively on the North American will. Once the war was over, the government of the United States decreed the demobilization of the Cuban Liberating Army, and Cuba remained under a North American military occupation. Of course, the occupying power dissolved the Cuban revolutionary government, thus destroying all vestiges of Cuban representation. Disarmed the great Antille, abolished its government, and under a military occupation of the United States, the invading government convened the constituent convention of the Republic. The patriots drafted the constitution of the new State, but something was missing, very important for the North American State Department: to define the relations between the United States and Cuba.