institution of higher education was the National University at the capital, which in 1920 was composed of four colleges, one of philos- ophy and letters (Colegio del Rosario), one of medicine and natural science, one of mathematics and civil engineering, and one of law and political science.
Finances. In 1911 and 1913 Colombia contracted new foreign loans aggregating some I 800,000 and bearing interest at 6%. The budget for 1920 estimated the total revenue at 23,845,250 pesos de oro; and the expenditures at 27 792.581.37 pesos de pro. In his message to Congress, July 20 1920, President Fidel Suarez estimated that the revenues for the current year might reach 24,000,000 pesos de oro. At that date the external debt of Colombia amounted to 8,508,000 pesos de oro, besides a debt of 1 1, 335.065 pesos de oro which had been incurred to promote the construction of railways. Upon these debts the Government was paying interest regularly through a London firm. The internal debt of Colombia was composed of the consolidated debt and the floating debt, amount- ing respectively to 2,848,260 pesos de oro and 10,840,654 pesos de oro. The total debt in July 1920 amounted to 35,040,073 pesos de oro, excluding some 4,000,000 pesos de oro of current obligations.
Monetary System. By a law of 1909 the regulation of Colombia's currency was entrusted to a board which was directed to gather a gold reserve and to guarantee the redemption of the paper money and to give new bills and coins in exchange for old paper. The ratio of the gold peso to the pound sterling was fixed at 5 to I. In 1915 an official estimate of the money in Colombia in U.S. currency was as follows :
Paper money .
Silver coin
Nickel coin
Colombian gold coin .... English and U.S. gold coin Old silver coin, Colombian and foreign Gold coin on deposit ....
Total
$10,056,300
4,004,700
997,700
85,000
6,356.300
3,000,000
2,586,400
$27,086,400
Early in 1916 the Government issued an order that paper currency should be exchanged at the rate of loo paper pesos (moneda papel) for one peso de oro in coin or new banknotes. The monetary unit of Colombia was in 1920 the gold peso.
History. On Aug. 3 1909, Gen. Ramon Gonzalez-Valencia was elected by Congress to serve as president for one year in place of Gen. Reyes, who had resigned. On July 15 1910, Carlos E. Restrepo, a journalist and publicist, was elected president. President Restrepo aimed to restore the credit of the country, to rehabilitate the finances, and to make a satisfactory adjust- ment of the Panama affair. At the end of his term he refused to become a candidate for reelection. In the presidential election of Feb. 1914, a Conservative, Jose Vicente Concha, was elected president for four years. The Liberal candidate had withdrawn from the contest before the election was held; and President Concha, who was inaugurated on Aug. 7 1914, gave the Liberals minority representation in his Cabinet. His Minister of Foreign Affairs was the litterateur and statesman, Marco Fidel Suarez; and his Minister of the Treasury was the liberal leader, Diego Mendoza. Before the end of Concha's administration, however, the last-named minister resigned from the Cabinet. Aside from fiscal and diplomatic problems which he inherited, President Concha had to face new problems resulting from the war. In Oct. 1917 the Minister of Foreign Relations, whom the Conserva- tives had nominated for the presidency, resigned from Concha's Cabinet. Marco Fidel Suarez was elected president of Colombia in Feb. 1918. He was inaugurated on Aug. 7 forthe term 1918-22.
Colombia's relations with Panama and the United States had long remained delicate b:caus3 of unsettled questions arising out of the setting up of Panama as a separate State in 1903. After Gen. Reyes' visit to Washington failed, an attempt was made in 1909 to adjust those questions by a treaty negotiated by Colombia's envoy, Enrique Cortes, and Secretary of State Elihu Root. In connexion with the projected treaties between Colom- bia and Panama and between Panama and the United States, this treaty stipulated that Colombia should acknowledge Pana- ma's independence; that Colombia should renounce all claims and declare Panama free frpm all debts incurred by Colombia before Nov. 3 1903; and that Panama should pay Colombia annually $250,000 (U.S. currency) for 10 years. As this agree- ment was unacceptable to Colombia, on April 6 1914 Thaddeus A. Thompson, minister of the United States in Bogota, and Jose F. Urrutia, Minister of Foreign Relations for Colombia,
signed a treaty containing expressions of regret by the United States for the difference that had arisen between herself and Colombia because of Panama, granting Colombia special privi- leges in the use of the Panama Canal, and providing that the United States should pay Colombia $25,000,000 to recompense her for the damages due to Panama's independence. This treaty was" ratified by a law of the Colombian Congress on June 9 1914. The apologetic phrases, in particular, occasioned delay in the United States: with modifications, in April 1921 it was ratified by the U.S. Senate.
After the outbreak of the war, Minister Fidel Suarez addressed a circular to the editors of Colombia, on Nov. 27 1914, exhorting them to observe a strict neutrality. In response to a communica- tion of Germany's minister at Bogota, announcing the renewal of the unrestricted submarine campaign, Fidel Suarez expressed a desire for an end of the war and deplored its effects. When he mentioned the use by belligerents of measures which rendered it difficult to save neutral property and innocent lives he declared that his Government reserved the right to protest and to demand justice. On June 2 1917 he sent a circular to the governors of departments stating the intention of his Government to observe neutrality in the war between the United States and Germany. In making this announcement he took occasion to deprecate certain attempts that had been made to show that Colombia " sympathized incorrectly with one or another of the belliger- ents." As one of the countries invited to accede to the League of Nations, the Government, in accordance with the authoriza- tion of Congress dated Nov. 3 1919, accepted and joined the League. In filing her adhesion, however, Colombia served notice that her acceptance of Article X. of the Covenant did not imply her acknowledgment of Panama as an independent nation. Two delegates from Colombia attended the assembly of the League at Geneva which adjourned in Dec. 1920.
See Annual Report of the Council of the Corporation of Foreign Bondholders (London 1910 ) ; Censo General de la Repiiblica de Colom- bia levantado el 5 de Marzo de 1912 (Bogota 1912): Diario Official (Bogota 1910 ) ; P. J. Eder, Colombia (London 1913) ; Direccion Gen- eral de Estadistica: Comercio exterior de la Repiiblica de Colombia, ano de 1916 (Bogota 1919); Informe del Ministro de Instniccion Publica at Congreso Nacional (Bogota 1911 ) ; Informe del Ministro de Hacienda al Congreso (Bogota 1914 ); Informe del Ministro de Guerra al Congreso (Bogota 1914 ) ; Informe del Ministro de Rela- ciones Exteriores al Congreso (Bogota 1910 ) ; Mensaje del Presidents de la Repiiblica de Colombia al Congreso Nacional (Bogota 1911 ); Monthly Bulletin of the International Bureau of the American Re- publics (Washington 1910 ) ; Pan-American Union, Colombia, General Descriptive Data (Washington 1910 ); Proceedings of the First Pan- American Financial Conference (Washington 1915); Republica de Colombia; Leyes expedididas par el Congreso Nacional en su Legisla- tura (Bogota 1911 ) ; A. J. Uribe, Anales Diplomdticos y Consulares de Colombia (5 vols., Bogota 1900-18). (W. S. Ro.)
COLORADO (see 6.717). The pop. of the state in 1920 was 939,629; in 1910, 799,024 an increase of 140,605, or 17-6% as compared with 48% in the preceding decade. Native-born were 83-8% in 1919, whites 98%, negroes and Indians numbered 12,935, and there were 3,736 Chinese and 2,300 Japanese. The density of pop. increased from 7-7 persons to the sq.m. in 1910 to 9-1 in 1920. The decay of mining towns altered the balance between urban and rural pop.; in 1920 the urban pop. was 48- 2%, the rural 51-8%; in 1910 the urban 50-7% and the rural 49'3%- The pop. in 1920 of the six cities then having a pop. of over 10,000, their pop. for 1910 and the percentage of increase, were:
Increase 1920
Denver 256,491
Pueblo 43,050
Colorado Springs Boulder Greeley . Trinidad
30,105 1 1, 006
10,958 10,906
1910
213,381
4L747
29,078
9,539
8,179
10,204
Per cent 20-2
3-1
3-5 15-4 34-o
6-9
Leadville decreased in pop. from 12,455 in 1900 to 7,508 in 1910 and to 4,959 in 1920.
Agriculture. During the-decade 1910-20 agriculture displaced mining as Colorado's most important industry. The number of farms increased 29-8%, to 59,9341 their area 80-8%, to 24,462,014^ ac. ; and their average size 39-2%, to 408-1 acres. The value of all farm property increased 119-1%, to $1,076,794,749. Land values
