THE VENEZUELAN FRONTIER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10619, 14 March 1896, Page 3

THE VENEZUELAN FRONTIER.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sia, —While waiting, like many others, for the result of the United States Commission's deliberations on tho dispute in Venezuela, I have been looking np old maps, charts, and books en the subject, and what I havo come across i» very eonelasive evidence that < the Venezuelans aad that portion of the United States people who advocate a partition according to the spheres of Dutch and Spanish influence at the cession of Guiana to Great Britain or at the promulgation of the Monroe doctrine, are decidedly weakening their c»use thereby. In one of the best atlases of the time is a large map of " The Coast of Guyana, from the Oco'onoko to the River of the Amazons, and the inland parts as far as fchey have beea explored by the French and Dutch engineer*," by Db la Rochette, the famous' cartographer. As an Admiralty chart this ia probably the best map of the time.

Not a single Spanir.l'. name appears in all the territory at present disputed. Everything as far west as the Orianco has a purely Datch or native name, and Dntch posts »nd forts are dotted over the country, with quaint remarks attached to many of them. The only place with any Spanish associations is St. Antonio, 40 miles up the Oaroui, a southern tributary of the Ocieoeo; and at the confluence of these two rivers is a post called " Antient Guyana, destroyed by the Dutch in 1579." Indeed, it is evident that the Spanish sphere at this time (1800) did not estend further east than the Orinoco in its whole loner course, all the nomenclature of to-day being of a later date, and hence, according to the avowed basis of contention, void. The Spanish province of Guyana, or Near Andalusia, says the map, "according to the medern division of th« Spaniards, extends from Rio Orinoco to Vincent Pinion's Bay, along tlee back settlements qf the French ami Dvtth." The back settlements of the Dutch extend in a carve to the Ccurord river and the Pacaraima Monntains, and only come within touch of the Spacish at one point, namely, San Joaquim, on the Parima— i.e., without the dispnted territory. Thug the territory, unquestionably in the former' sphere of Dutch settlement, embraces the whole of the disputed ground, even to the Hoes of the greatest extremists, and a large slice of land besides that has never been called into question. Even if the Venezuelans claim all the country at present under tiwir influence they will be somewhat disappointed ; but if they revert to the promulgation of the Monroe doctrine and the cession of Guiau*, they will dually be disinclined to agree to their own conditions. Moreover, if priority of settlement; is ar'iied, the Venezuelans have no claims, for, as we have seen, the Dutch bad in 1579, a date at which Spanish settlement was purely coastal, established a firm footing in the inland regions. In the following century the English and French followed the intrepid Dutch. The only Spanish associations of any age are these :—(1) Sir Walter Raleigh Bays the Waraus of the Western Orinoco delta were at the time of his visit partly civilised through contact with Spanish civilisation, and (2) a mission of two or three Csttaloniau Capuchins existed for a. short time at St. Thomas, m the Cis-Orincco region.—l am, &c., March 10. Macs al Campos.

Bhoke JUNO TOBACCQ