the Church, confiscated a large
part of its property, and disfranchised the clergy, but in 1886
political rights were restored to the latter and the Roman Catholic
religion was declared to be the faith of the nation. The rulers of the
Church have learned by experience, however, that they can succeed best
by avoiding partisan conflicts, and the archbishop of Bogota gave
effect to this in 1874 by issuing an edict instructing priests not to
interfere in politics. The Church influence with all classes is
practically supreme and unquestioned, and it still exercises complete
control in matters of education. The Colombian hierarchy consists of
an archbishop, residing at Bogota, 10 bishops, 8 vicars-general, and
2170 priests. There were also in 1905 about 750 members of 10 monastic
and religious orders. There were 270 churches and 312 chapels in the
republic. Each diocese has its own seminary for the training of
priests.

_Finance._--In financial matters Colombia is known abroad chiefly
through repeated defaults in meeting her bonded indebtedness, and
through the extraordinary depreciation of her paper currency. The
public revenues are derived from import duties on foreign merchandise,
from export duties on national produce, from internal taxes and
royalties on liquors, cigarettes and tobacco, matches, hides and salt,
from rentals of state emerald mines and pearl fisheries, from stamped
paper, from port dues and from postal and telegraph charges. The
receipts and expenditure are estimated for biennial periods, but it
has not been customary to publish detailed results. Civil wars have of
course been a serious obstacle, but it was announced by President
Reyes in 1907 that the revenues were increasing. For the two years
1905 and 1906 the revenues were estimated to produce (at $5 to the L1
sterling) L4,203,823, the expenditures being fixed at the same amount.
The expenditures, however, did not include a charge of L424,000,
chiefly due on account of war claims and requisitions. During the
first year of this period the actual receipts, according to the
council of the corporation of foreign bondholders, were $9,149,591
gold (L1,829,918) and the payments $7,033,317 gold (L1,406,663). It
was expected by the government that the 1906 revenues would largely
exceed 1905, but the expectation was not fully realized, chiefly, it
may be assumed, because of the inability of