RELIGION, ETC. — FINANCE — INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE 1095
Religion and Instruction.
The prevailing form of religion is Roman Catholic. The Bishop of Leon, whose diocese is the whole Republic, is a suffragan of the Archbishop of Guatemala. There are about 356 elementary schools, ten colleges and two wniversities if aculfades). Also two schools of telegraphy, at Managua and Granada.
A national Industrial, Commercial, and scientific Museum has been estab- lished at Managua.
Finance.
Revenue and expenditure in paper pesos : —
—
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
Revenue . Expenditure .
Pesos 13,145,800 10,286,519
Pesos 13,119,503 12,502.592
Pesos 12,994,275 18,639,308
Pesos
15,182,852 34,573,125 1
Pescs 24,000,000 24,000,000
1 Ordinarj' expenditure, 12,052,848 pesos ; extraordinary, on account of revolution of 1909, 22,520,277 pesos.
A six per cent, loan for 1,250,000Z. was issued in 1909 for the construc- tion of railways, &c., and for conversion purposes. There is a French debt of 1905 of 12,500,000 francs at 5 per cent. The internal debt amounted to 59,417,197 pesos in March, 1912.
On June 6, 1911, a convention was signed at Washington between the United States and Nicaragua by which it is intended to establish the latter on a sound financial basis by raising a loan to refund the existing foreign debt.
Industry and Commerce.
The agricultural, timber and mining industries are the principal sources of national wealth. The area of cultivation in Nicaragua has extended in recent years and would probably extend still further but for the scarcity of labour. The chief product is coffee, of which the exports for 1910 amounted to 12,028 tons. The coffee estates (largely in American and German hands) lie in the western districts. Bananas are grown in large quantities in the Bluefields region and are all shipped to New Orleans. Cocoa of good quality is grown chiefly in the south of the Pacific coast region, the greater part of the produce is consumed ^,n the country. Sugar is widely cultivated ; there are several large and many small sugar factories ; the export of sugar in 1910 was 230 tons. The sale of native spirits was a government monopoly, abol- ished in June, 1910. Tobacco is grown in several districts ; the best is pro- duced in Omotepe, a volcanic island in Lake Nicaragua. The leaf is good but not well cured ; it is not exported. The fiscal revenues on tobacco, domestic and foreign, are leased to a syndicate which pays an annual rent of 500,000 pesos. Rubber is collected in the mountain forests, and there are young rubber plantations on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The forests contain, besides mahogany and cedar which are largely exported, many valuable timber trees, dye-woods, gums, and medicinal plants. They are worked both from the Atlantic and Pacific, but statistics of the timber cut are incomplete.
There are 1,200,000 cattle in Nicaragua.
There are several gold mines, worked by American and British companies, one having also silver. The gold export from the Atlantic coast amounted in 1910 to 1,000,000 dollars. The mines towards the east coast in Mico,
