Annuaire de législation haïtienne: the laws, decrees and arrêtés of 1909

The sixth year of the Annuaire, and the year the currency crisis of 1908 was addressed.

On 20 August the Legislature voted a loan of 2,500,000 gourdes, of which 1,000,000 gourdes in 50-centime nickel pieces were to be withdrawn from circulation and melted. The loan is guaranteed by a surtax of 15 per cent in American gold on combined import duties, and the law provides that once the loan is repaid the surtax falls to 10 per cent and is applied to the further withdrawal of nickel. A law of 12 August returned certain revenues to their original allocation.

Two institutional laws follow, both promulgated on 30 August. Since the government had taken the Treasury service away from the Banque Nationale d'Haïti and given it to Bureaux de la Recette et de la Dépense, no law had regulated those offices, fixed their establishment or set their salaries; the first law fills that gap. The second authorises an audit of the Banque Nationale's books from the day of its institution to 30 September 1909, on the ground, in the law's words, of the facts alleged against the Bank and the charges laid against it, and creates a commission of seven members to carry it out. The budget for 1909-1910 is fixed at 3,329,010.35 dollars American gold and 8,246,841.74 gourdes.

A legislated audit of the note-issuing and fiscal-agent bank, with a named cut-off date, is a primary document for the relationship between the Haitian state and the Banque Nationale that ends in the 1910-11 reconstitution.