Santo Domingo has now made an appeal to us to help it in turn, and not only every principle of wisdom but every generous instinct within us bids us respond to the appeal. The conditions in Santo Domingo have for a number of years grown from bad to worse until recently all society was on the verge of dissolution. Fortunately just at this time a wise ruler sprang up in Santo Domingo, who, with his colleagues, saw the dangers threatening their beloved country, and appealed to the friendship of their great and powerful neighbor to help them. The immediate threat came to them in the shape of foreign intervention. The previous rulers of Santo Domingo had recklessly incurred debts, and owing to her internal disorders she had ceased to be able to provide means of paying the debts. The patience of her foreign creditors had become exhausted, and at least one foreign nation was on the point of intervention and was only prevented from intervening by the unofficial assurance of this Government that it would itself strive to help Santo Domingo in her hour of need. Of the debts incurred some were just, while some were not of a character which really renders it obligatory on, or proper for, Santo Domingo to pay them in full. But she could not pay any of them at all unless some stability was assured. Accordingly the Executive Department of our Government negotiated a treaty under which we are to try to help the Dominican people to straighten out their finances. This treaty is pending before the Senate, whose consent to it is necessary. In the meantime we have made a temporary arrangement which will last until the Senate has had time to take action upon the treaty. Under this arrangement we see to the honest administration of the custom-houses, collecting the revenues, turning over forty-five per cent to the Government for running expenses and putting the other fifty-five per cent into a safe deposit for equitable division among the various creditors, whether European or American, accordingly as, after investigation, their claims seem just.