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ERA OF CONSTITUTION MAKING 261 dispute, but no satisfactory arrangement was reached until 1874. In the beginning of that year Don Carlos Walker Martinez began to press the matter upon the Bolivians and by August 6th, had arranged through Senor Frias a new treaty, by the terms of which Chile withdrew her claims to half of the port duties to which she was entitled under the treaty of 1866, and, waiving her claim to the extreme northern boundary — title to whichshehad rather ambiguously maintained — obtained in lieu thereof, for the industries which she had estab- lished upon the disputed territory, freedom from duties for a term of twenty-five years. The questions, how- ever, were by no means satisfactorily settled. On March 25th, 1871, there had occurred an earth- quake which destroyed considerable propertj' in San- tiago and Valparaiso ; another in July of the year 1873, caused some loss of life and property in the same cities. By the year 1874, the coal fields in the south had become quite important; this was fortunate, as Chile had long felt the want of this very necessary article. Importations of foreign coal declined during the year twenty-five per cent, while exportations of the same increased fifty per cent over 1873. In the latter part of this year, November 2nd, 1874, the president was authorized by congress to contract a loan of $9,500,000, of which $4,500,000 should be ap- plied to the liquidation of the seven per cent loan ob- tained in London in 1867, and $5,000,000 should be used to convert high interest bearing bonds, which con- gress had previously authorized, into a foreign debt. Chile's credit ranked high, and the scheme was both to obtain loans at lower rates of interest and to con- vert the home debt into a foreign loan so as to bring gold and silver into circulation, there being at this time an overissue of paper.