Latin America: Its Rise and Progress
CHAPTER IV
THE ECONOMIC PROBLEM
Loans--Budgets--Paper money--The formation of national capital.
Unexploited wealth abounds in America. Forests of rubber, as in the African Congo; mines of gold and diamonds, which recall the treasures of the Transvaal and the Klondyke; rivers which flow over beds of auriferous sand, like the Pactolus of ancient legend; coffee, cocoa, and wheat, whose abundance is such that these products are enough to glut the markets of the world. But there is no national capital. This contrast between the wealth of the soil and the poverty of the State gives rise to serious economic problems.
By means of long-sustained efforts, an active race would have won financial independence. The Latin-Americans, idle, and accustomed to leave everything to the initiative of the State, have been unable to effect the conquest of the soil, and it is foreign capital that exploits the treasure of America.
Since the very beginnings of independence the Latin democracies, lacking financial reserves, have had need of European gold. The government of Spain used to seize upon the wealth of her colonies to satisfy the needs of a prodigal court, and to prevent its own bankruptcy. The independence of America was won with the aid of English money, hence the first of the necessary loans. Canning encouraged the South American revolutionaries, and the English {379} bankers gave their support to their plans, in the shape of loans to the new governments. Colombian, Argentine, and Peruvian agents solicited heavy loans in the City of London, without which assistance the Spanish power could never have been defeated.
The republican _régime_ thus commenced its career by assuming imperious financial responsibilities. Before commencing to practise a policy of fiscal economy, it was necessary to accept the conclusion of the most urgent loans, but once the European markets were open the financial orgy commenced. In 1820 Señor Zea concluded the first Colombian loan; in 1821 the government of that country declared that it could not ensure the service of the debt. The necessities of the war with Spain and the always difficult task of building up a new society demanded the assistance of foreign gold; loans accumulated, and very soon various States were obliged to solicit the simultaneous reduction of the capital borrowed and the rate of interest paid. The lamentable history of these bankrupt democracies dates from this period.
Little by little these financial contracts lost all semblance of serious business. In the impossibility of obtaining really solid guarantees the bankers imposed preposterous conditions, and issue at a discount became the rule with the new conventions. A series of interventions in Buenos-Ayres, Mexico, San Domingo, and Venezuela, diplomatic conflicts, and claims for indemnity resulted from this precarious procedure. Moreover, thanks to the protection accorded by their respective countries, foreigners acquired a privileged position. The Americans were subjected to the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts, before which they could demand the payment of their claims on the State; foreigners enjoyed exceptional treatment. A statute was enacted in their favour, and their governments supported them in the {380} recovery of unjustifiable claims. Sir Charles Wyke, English minister to Mexico, wrote to the Foreign Office in 1862: "Nineteen out of twenty foreigners who reside in this unfortunate country have some claim against the government in one way or another. Many of these claims are really based on the denial of real justice, while others have been fabricated throughout, as a good speculation, which would enable the claimant to obtain money for some imaginary wrong; for example, three days' imprisonment which was intentionally provoked with the object of formulating a claim which might be pushed to an exorbitant figure."[1]
In face of the string of debts which arose from the loans themselves, or from claims for damages suffered during the civil wars, the governments could only succumb. The immorality of the fiscal agents and the greed of the foreigner will explain these continual bankruptcies, which constitute the financial history of America.
The descendants of the prodigal Spanish conquerors, who knew nothing of labour or thrift, have incessantly resorted to fresh loans in order to fill the gaps in their budgets. Politicians knew of only one solution of the economic disorder--to borrow, so that little by little the Latin-American countries became actually the financial colonies of Europe.
Economic dependence has a necessary corollary--political servitude. French intervention in Mexico was originally caused by the mass of unsatisfied financial claims; foreigners, the creditors of the State, were in favour of intervention. England and France, who began by seeking to ensure the recovery of certain debts, finally forced a monarch upon the debitor nation. The United States entertained the ambition of becoming the sole creditor of the American peoples: this remarkable privilege would {381} have assured them of an incontestable hegemony over the whole continent.
In the history of Latin America loans symbolise political disorder, lack of foresight, and waste; it is thanks to loans that revolutions are carried out, and it is by loans that the _caudillos_ have enriched themselves. Old debts are liquidated by means of new, and budgetary deficits are balanced by means of foreign gold. When the poverty caused by political disorder becomes too great the American governments clamour feverishly in the markets of Europe for the hypothecation of the public revenues, and the issue of fresh funds, offering to pay a high interest, and recognising the rights of suspended creditors.
On the one hand the budget is loaded to create new employments in order to assuage the national appetite for sinecures, while the protective tariffs are raised to enrich the State. Thus the forces of production disappear, life becomes dearer, and poverty can only increase. America has until lately known little of productive loans intended for use in the construction of railways, irrigation works, harbours, or for the organisation of colonies of immigrants.
The product of the customs and other fiscal dues is not enough to stimulate the material progress of a nation. So application is made to the bankers of London or Paris; but it is the very excess of these loan operations and the bad employment of the funds obtained that impoverishes the continent. The excessive number of administrative sinecures, the greed of the leaders, the vanity of governments, all call for gold; and when the normal revenues are not sufficient to enrich these hungry oligarchies, a loan which may involve the very future of the country appears to all to be the natural remedy.
The budgets of various States complicate still further a situation already difficult. They increase beyond all measure, without the slightest relation to {382} the progress made by the nation. They are based upon taxes which are one of the causes of the national impoverishment, or upon a protectionist tariff which adds greatly to the cost of life. The politicians, thinking chiefly of appearances, neglect the development of the national resources for the immediate augmentation of the fiscal revenues; thanks to fresh taxes, the budgets increase. These resources are not employed in furthering profitable undertakings, such as building railroads or highways, or increasing the navigability of the rivers. The bureaucracy is increased in a like proportion, and the budgets, swelled in order to dupe the outside world, serve only to support a nest of parasites. In the economic life of these countries the State is a kind of beneficent providence which creates and preserves the fortune of individual persons, increases the common poverty by taxation, display, useless enterprises, the upkeep of military and civil officials, and the waste of money borrowed abroad; such is the "alimentary politics" of which Le Play speaks. The government is the public treasury; by the government all citizens live, directly or indirectly, and the foreigner profits by exploiting the national wealth. A centralising power, the State forces a golden livery upon this bureaucratic mob of magistrates and deputies, political masters and teachers.
To sum up, the new continent, politically free, is economically a vassal. This dependence is inevitable; without European capital there would have been no railways, no ports, and no stable government in America. But the disorder which prevails in the finances of the country changes into a real servitude what might otherwise have been a beneficial relation. By the accumulation of loans frequent crises are provoked, and frequent occasions of foreign intervention.
A policy of thrift would have led to the establishment of economic equilibrium. Foreign gold has {383} poured in continually, not only in the form of loans but in the shape of material works--railways, ports, industries, and industrial undertakings. It is in this way that English capital has accumulated in the Argentine, Uruguay, Brazil, and Chili, where it has become a prominent factor in the industrial development of the country. In the Argentine it amounts to 300 millions, in Brazil to 150 millions, in Chili to 51 millions, and in Uruguay to 46 millions of pounds sterling.
New problems arise from the relation between the size of the population and the amount of the capital imported. The increase of alien wealth in nations which are not fertilised by powerful currents of immigration constitutes a real danger. To pay the incessantly increasing interest of the wealth borrowed, fresh sources of production and a constant increase of economic exchanges are necessary; in a word, a greater density of population. The exhaustion of the human stock in the debitor nations creates a very serious lack of financial equilibrium, which may result, not only in bankruptcy but also in the loss of political independence by annexation.
The solution of the financial problem depends, then, upon the solution of the problem of population. Immigrants will solve it by increasing the number of productive units, by accumulating their savings, by irresistible efforts which lay the foundations of solid fortunes. It is true that the wealth which they will create will also be of foreign origin, but in the second or third generation the descendants of the enriched colonists will become true citizens of the country in which their fathers have established themselves. They will have forgotten their country of origin, and will mingle with the old families which conserve the national traditions.
The ideal of peoples whose economic condition is dependence is naturally autonomy; without it all {384} liberty is precarious. A considerable stream of exports flows from America to Europe to pay for imports and the interest on foreign capital. Only this large exportation of products, as in the case of the Argentine, Mexico, and Brazil, can maintain a favourable commercial balance. The Argentine economist Alberto Martinez has demonstrated that as in his country there is neither an economic reserve nor a national capital, the diminution of exports causes serious financial disturbances; exchange is unstable, the rate rises, trade falls off, and credit is suspended.
In other countries the economic system is instability itself. It depends almost entirely on two or three agricultural products--coffee, cane-sugar, and rubber--and the incessant fluctuations in the prices of these products, which constitute the wealth of the country. One does not observe the regularity of the exports of the Argentine and Brazil, nor any important industrial development. To remedy the lack of equilibrium in the budget and to pay the interest on the foreign debt, the State, the guardian of the public fortune, once more resorts to loans. The creation of a national capital is thus an urgent necessity for these prodigal democracies.
By stimulating the development of agriculture, by creating or protecting industry, by diminishing the budgetary charges by the reduction of useless bureaucratic employments and sumptuary expenses, the Latin-American governments could gradually establish the necessary reserves.
On the other hand, fiscal agreements, commercial treaties, and railways must contribute to the solidarity of these nations among themselves. Europe has invested vast sums of capital in America; she sends thither large quantities of the products of her industries, but there are peoples more favoured than others by this invasion of capital. It should be possible by a series of practical conventions to lay the foundations {385} of a _Zollverein_. The dependence of certain republics as compared with others should tend to make them commercially independent of Europe. Already a number of industries are being developed in America; in Brazil their yield attains the annual value of 46 million pounds; in 1909 the imports were diminished by 3 million pounds in consequence of this new economic factor. It may be supposed that in the still distant future the agricultural peoples of America will buy the products of their industrial neighbours, the Argentine, Brazil, and Uruguay. The unification of the monetary system will still further facilitate the development of this inter-state commerce, this trade between zones almost exclusively agricultural, and other regions both agricultural and industrial; thus closer economic relations will be the basis of a lasting political understanding. No American republic has yet reached the term of its economic development.
We may distinguish three periods in the evolution of the nations towards autonomy; during the first their dependence is absolute, in respect of ideas as much as of men and capital; such is the present situation of the majority of the Latin democracies. During the second period agriculture suffices for the national necessities and industry develops; the Argentine, Brazil, and Mexico are already in this state of partial liberty. Finally, the period of agricultural and industrial exportation commences, and the intellectual influence of the country makes itself felt beyond the frontiers. After France and England, Germany and the United States reached this glorious phase. Neither Mexico nor the Argentine nor Brazil is as yet flooding the world with its industrial products nor affecting it by its original intellectual activities; there is no culture or philosophy that we can properly term Argentine or Chilian. Europe is tributary to the Argentine for her wheat and meats, {386} and to Brazil for her coffee, but ideas and machines come from Paris, London, and New York.
M. Limantour, who tried to save the Mexican railways from the Yankee capitalists, and the Argentine economists, who endeavoured to convert the foreign into a national debt, are preparing the way for the future reign of financial liberty; but this transformation depends on the increase of public or private wealth and the activity of immigrants, who in hospitable America soon become landed proprietors or merchants.
In the country districts, as in the cities, which are every day more numerous, the common wealth and the fiscal revenues are increasing, owing to the efforts of industrious men. Not only are foreign industrial undertakings being founded, but national institutions also, fed by national capital. When the necessary loans can be subscribed in the country itself, when railways and ports are constructed with State or private capital, or with the financial aid of other South American governments; when American multi-millionaires (there are already plenty of them in the Argentine) have effected the nationalisation of the public works now in the hands of foreigners, then the economic ideal of these democracies will be realised.
Latin America may already be considered as independent from the agricultural point of view; it possesses riches which are peculiar to it: coffee to Brazil, wheat to the Argentine, sugar to Peru, fruits and rubber to the Tropics. Its productive capacity is considerable. It may rule the markets of the world. The systematic exploitation of its mines will reveal treasures which are not even suspected. We may say, then, that even without great industries the American continent, independent in the agricultural domain, and an exporter of precious metals, may win a doubtless precarious economic liberty.
[1] Cited by F. Bulnes, _El Verdadero Juarez_, Paris, 1904, p. 29.
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CONCLUSION
AMERICA AND THE FUTURE OF THE LATIN PEOPLES
The Panama Canal and the two Americas--The future conflicts between Slavs, Germans, Anglo-Saxons, and Latins--The role of Latin America.
A new route offered to human commerce transforms the politics of the world. The Suez Canal opened the legendary East to Europe, directed the stream of European emigration towards Australia, and favoured the formation, in South Africa, of an Anglo-Saxon Confederation. The Panama Canal is destined to produce profound perturbations in the equilibrium of the nations of the New World. Humboldt announced these changes in 1804:[1] "The products of China will be brought more than 6,000 miles nearer Europe and the United States; great changes will take place in the political condition of eastern Asia, because this tongue of earth (Panama) has for centuries been the rampart of the independence of China and Japan."
The Atlantic is to-day the ocean of the civilised world. The opening of the canal will thus displace the political axis of the world. The Pacific, an ocean separated from the civilising currents of Europe, will receive directly from the Old World the wealth and products of its labour and its emigrants. Until the present time the United States {388} and Japan have shared in its rule as a _mare clausum_, and they are disputing the supremacy in Asia and Western America. Once the isthmus is pierced, new commercial peoples may invade with their victorious industries the enchanted lands of Asia and the distant republics of South America. New York will be nearer to Callao, but the distance between Hamburg and Havre and the Peruvian coast will be equally diminished. It has been calculated that by the new route the voyage between Liverpool and the great ports of the Pacific will be reduced by 2,600 to 6,000 miles, according to the respective positions of the latter, and the distance between New York and the same centres of commercial activity will be diminished by 1,000 to 8,400 miles. German, French, and English navigation companies will run a service of modern vessels direct to the great ports of Chili and China. The paths of the world's trade will be changed; Panama will form the gate of civilisation to Eastern Asia and Western America, as Suez is to Central Asia, Eastern Africa, and Oceania. The Atlantic will become the ocean of the Old World.
The trade of the new era must undergo unexpected transformations. The influence of Europe in China and Western America will be considerably increased. Germany should become the rival of the United States in the commercial supremacy in the East and in the republics of Latin America. Her vessels, messengers of imperialism, which now make long voyages through the Straits of Magellan to reach Valparaiso and Callao, will then employ the canal route. The vessels of Japan will bear to Europe, as formerly did the Phoenician navigators, the products of the exotic Orient; New York will dethrone Antwerp, Hamburg, and Liverpool; the English will lose their historic position as intermediaries between Europe and Asia. The United States, masters of {389} the canal, will create in New York a great fair in which the merchandise of East and West will be accumulated: the treasures of Asia, the gold of Europe, and the products of their own overgrown industries. They will thus have won an economic hegemony over the Pacific, South America, and China, where they will be at least privileged competitors in the struggle between England and Germany. Between New York and Hong Kong, New York and Yokohama, and New York and Melbourne new commercial relations will be established. In approaching New York the East will recede from Liverpool and the ports of Europe, and the Panama route will favour the industries of the United States in Asia and Oceania. It may already be foreseen that the United States will be terrible competitors in Australia, and above all in New Zealand, where they will drive the English merchants from the markets. It is difficult to write, like Tarde, a "fragment of future history"; too many unknown forces intervene in the historical drama of the peoples. But no doubt, unless some extraordinary event occurs to disturb the evolution of the modern peoples, the great nations of industrial Europe and Japan, the champion of Asiatic integrity, will oppose the formidable progress of the United States.
The canal sets a frontier to Yankee ambition; it is the southern line, the "South Coast Line" of which a North American politician, Jefferson, used to dream. As early as 1809 he believed that Cuba and Canada would become incorporated, as States of the Union, in the immense Confederation; anticipating the rude lyrics of Walt Whitman, he dreamed of founding "an empire of liberty so vast that the like has never been seen." Heirs to the Anglo-Saxon genius, the Americans of the North wish to form a democratic federation.
They have succeeded in doing in Cuba what Japan {390} has done in Korea: first, the struggle for autonomy, then the necessary intervention, then a protectorate, and perhaps annexation. Thus the prophecy of Jefferson will be realised. Between Canada, an autonomous colony, and the United States, there are common economic interests, and commercial treaties have created such a plexus of interests that the evolution from these practical alliances to political union would seem to be a simple matter. The disintegration of the Anglo-Saxon Empire will be the work of the United States. American activities in Canada are steadily increasing; the Yankee capital employed in various Canadian industries amounts to £20,000,000. Trade is increasing, and by virtue of new conventions the United States will be even better situated than ever to dispute the Canadian markets with England. In this free colony there is a Far West which the States have peopled. The East is Anglo-Saxon, industrial, aristocratic; the West, barbarian and agrarian, desires union with the neighbouring democracy. Münsterberg reports that a Boston journal prints every day, in large letters, on the first page, that the first duty of the United States is the annexation of Canada.
The friendship of England, and the moral harmony of the English-speaking world, will perhaps check the progress of American imperialism northward; but the capital which develops and exploits the west of Canada is a competitor which cannot be resisted. Moreover, such men as Goldwin Smith, a moral authority in Canada, counsel union with the great Republican neighbour. Free trade, which the English radicals wish to maintain, relaxes the economic ties which might ensure the duration of the British Empire, and prevents the formation of a _Zollverein_, of that fiscal union between Great Britain and her colonies which was the great project of Chamberlain. It is to guarantee commercial and economic {391} interests that Canada is approaching the United States and withdrawing from England.
Mexico, where £100,000,000 of American capital is invested; Panama, a republic subjected to the protectorate of the Anglo-Saxon North; the Canal Zone, which the Yankees have acquired as a remote southern possession; the Antilles, which they are gradually absorbing; Central America, where ever turbulent republics tolerate pacificatory intervention; and Canada, rich and autonomous, form, for the statesmen of Washington and the Yellow Press, a great and desirable empire. In two centuries the small Puritan colonies of the Atlantic seaboard will perhaps have come to govern the continent from the Pole to the Tropics; and will create, with the aid of all the races of mankind, a new Anglo-Saxon humanity, industrial and democratic. Thus the Roman Republic, from her narrow home between the Apennines, governed the world, as did Great Britain, peopled by a tenacious race, the sea.
To check the advance of the United States the South will lack a political force of the same weight. The conflict between the united Americans of the North and the divided inhabitants of the South will necessarily terminate fatally for the Latin New World.
The Pacific will be the theatre of racial wars and vast and transforming emigrations. Once the canal is open it is extremely probable that European emigrants will descend in large numbers upon the seaboard of Western America. Brazil and the Argentine attract the modern adventurer; their Eldorado is in the Argentine plains or the forests of Brazil. Venezuela, invaded by emigrants of Germanic race, will be born again; a dense population will fill her valleys, and Caracas will become a great Latin city. But in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia, there is a great lack of centres of civilisation in the {392} interior, and the sierra is largely wild and unpeopled; all progress is in the small towns of the coast, set amidst the aridity of the desert. Chinese and Japanese, who are content with low wages, are crushing the European worker by their competition. Japanese colonies will people the American West from Panama to Chili, and in these new countries the fusion of Japanese and Indian blood is by no means impossible.
There will always be two distinct regions in South America, separated by the Andes and divided by the Tropics. The Atlantic region will retain its liberty, and increase in wealth and in power. It is possible that the south of Brazil will become German, but the Argentine, Chili, Uruguay, and the great Brazilian States will defend the Latin heritage and European tradition. To the north and the west depopulated and divided nations will struggle against an invasion of peoples of similar races coming from the east and against a conquering people from the north. Thanks to the protection of Japan, they may be able to free themselves from the tutelage of the United States, or they may be able to hold off the subjects of the Mikado by submitting to the influence of North America. Only the federation of all the Latin republics under the pressure of Europe--that is to say, of England, France, and Italy, who have important markets in America--might save the nations of the Pacific, just as a century ago Great Britain was able to defend the autonomy of these peoples against the mystic projects of the Holy Alliance.
The Monroe doctrine, which prohibits the intervention of Europe in the affairs of America and angers the German imperialists, the professors of external expansion, like Münsterberg, may become obsolete. If Germany or Japan were to defeat the United States, this tutelary doctrine would be only a melancholy memory. Latin America would emerge {393} from the isolation imposed upon it by the Yankee nation, and would form part of the European concert, the combination of political forces--alliances and understandings--which is the basis of the modern equilibrium. It would become united by political ties to the nations which enrich it with their capital and buy its products.
Japan has not lost her originality as an Asiatic nation, because she is united to England by a treaty which assures the _status quo_ in the East. The Latin republics will not renounce their character as American nations because they may conclude understandings with the nations of the West. Already there are commercial treaties between these nations and Europe, as well as a harmony of economic and intellectual interests. Brazil and the Argentine, where British money and French ideals prevail, might themselves unite to form a vast combination of alliances with the group of European nations which conquered, civilised, and enriched America: that is, Spain, France, and England. Will not a community of interests in America give a new strength to the union of these peoples in Europe? Great political changes would result from these new influences: the American Latins, by entering into the combinations of European politics, would divide Italy, whose interests in the Argentine and Brazil are so great, from the Triple Alliance, and would strengthen the understanding between England and France against Germany, which disputes with them not only the hegemony of Europe but also the preponderance in America. Canning, who opposed the designs of the Holy Alliance, used to say a century ago that he had given the New World liberty in order to restore equilibrium to the Old World. Against the theocratic peoples who were seeking to overshadow the destinies of the earth he evoked the apparition of these free democracies destined to {394} establish the benefits of liberty on a firm footing. His hope was premature, because it was hardly possible for perfect republics to rise from the ruins of Spanish absolutism. Even to-day, after a century of attempts at constitutional government, only a few Latin American States--the Argentine, Brazil, Chili, Peru, and Bolivia--seem capable of fulfilling the desires of Canning.
These peoples would contribute to the defence of the Latin ideal. But is not this an excessive ambition for nations still semi-barbarous? The old races of the West contemplate their impetuous advance with much the same distrust as that which Rome experienced as she watched the turbulent migrations of Goths and Germans. And even if the Latin race could check its irremediable decadence by the aid of the wealth and youth of these American peoples, would it really be profitable to oppose the triumph of the Anglo-Saxons and the Slavs for the sake of saving a fallen caste? Seventy years ago Tocqueville visited the United States and divined their future greatness. To-day M. Clemenceau, a politician and a great admirer of the North American Republic, praises the Latin vigour, as he sees it in Buenos-Ayres, Uruguay, and Rio de Janeiro. The Yankee republic has realised the prophecies of the former critic, and it would not be strange if the southern democracies of America were to confirm the optimism of the latter. A new energy, undeniable material progress, and a fertile creative faith announce the advent, in the new continent, if not of the Eldorado of which the hungry emigrant dreams, at least of wealthy nations, rich in industry and agriculture; the advent of a world in which the glorious age of the exhausted Latin world may renew itself, as in the classic fountain. When Emerson visited England fifty years ago he declared that the heart of the Britannic race was in the United States, and that {395} the "mother island," exhausted, would some day, like many parents, be satisfied with the vigour which she had bestowed upon her own children.[2] In speaking of Spain and Portugal, might not Argentines, Brazilians, and Chilians employ the same proud language?
The decadence of the Latins, which seems obvious to the sociologist, may really be only a long period of abeyance. The adventures in which such an exuberant force of heroism was expended might well result in a reaction, a weariness after creation. At the beginning of the modern period, in the sixteenth century, the English, undisciplined adventurers, were hostile to the regularity and monotony of industrial life; in the nineteenth century they built an empire, organised a powerful industrialism, and became slow and methodical; and in 1894 Dr. Karl Pearson was uneasy as to "the decadence of British energy which is revealed by the adoption of State socialism and by the poverty of mechanical invention."[3]
In the future the Latins may regain their old virility. The _ricorsi_ which Vico saw in history cause certain peoples to recover the pre-eminence they have lost, while others, prosperous nations, fall back into decadence; no privilege is eternal, no reaction is irremediable and inevitable.
"Multa renascentur quæ jam cecidere, cadentque Quæ nunc sunt in honore...."
The imperial policy of Charles V. and Philip II., the conquest of a continent by the Spaniards, Portuguese, and French, the glorious festival of the Renaissance, the triumph of Lepanto, the splendid empire of Venice, the political activity of Richelieu, {396} the great century of French classicism, the Revolution which proclaimed the Rights of Man, and the Napoleonic epic, the liberation of Spanish America: this is the hymn of glory of the Latin race. To-day Belgium, Italy, and the Argentine give signs of a renaissance of that race, which men have supposed to be exhausted.
Heirs of the Latin spirit in the moral, religious, and political domain, the Ibero-American peoples are seeking to conserve their glorious heritage. The idea of race, in the sense of traditions and culture, is predominant in modern politics. Flourishing on every hand, we see Pan-Slavism, Pan-Islamism, Pan-Asianism, Pan-Germanism, Pan-Latinism--barbarous words which give an indication as to the struggles of the future. The Slavs of Dalmatia, Germany, Servia, and Bosnia would reconstitute, with the fragments of many divided nations, a State which would also be a race. Islam unites divers peoples by the ardour of a new fanaticism, under the inspiration of popular Khalifs or marabouts, from Soudan to Fez, from Bombay to Stamboul. Vast unions of scattered peoples are thus springing into formation, in the name of a religion or a common origin. Slavs, Saxons, Latins, and Mongols are contending for the possession of the world. It is thus that the drama of history becomes simplified; above the quarrels of precarious nations are rising the profound antagonisms of millennial races.
Onésime Reclus, in an excellent volume, the _Partage du monde_, has gone into the respective positions of each of these powerful groups. The conclusions of his analysis are full of hope; in spite of the Saxons and Slavs the Latins still hold vast territories, which they must people. Their geographical position, despite Anglo-Saxon imperialism and the immense surface of all the Russias of Europe and Asia, is certainly not inferior.
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There are a hundred million Slavs scattered over an immense Asiatic and European territory, which stretches from Vladivostock to the Baltic Sea; two and a half milliards of hectares are waiting for the children of this prodigious race. By uniting the peoples of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland to the Germans of Austria, the German race, whether it propagates the gospel of Pan-Germanism by commercial penetration or by violence, possesses about 100 million hectares for 93 millions of men. The Anglo-Saxons, the natural enemies of German expansion, the rivals of the _Deutschtum_ in Asia, Africa, and America, rule an almost unlimited area of milliards of hectares; India, Canada, the United States, South Africa, Egypt, Australia, conquered territories and kingdoms held in tutelage, peoples of all faiths and all races. More than 200 millions of Anglo-Saxons people this "greater Britain" without including India, which is not assimilable.
The territory occupied by the Latin peoples in Europe, America, and Africa is 3.9 million hectares, inhabited by 250 millions of men; the number of Latins is thus not really inferior to that of the Anglo-Saxons, nor are the territories open to Latin expansion inferior to those reserved for the rival race. With the French colonies in Asia they amount to 4 milliards of hectares.
Here we have a Latin superiority; by the extent of their territories and their numbers the Latins outnumber the Slavs and the Germans. They do not yield to the English either in human capital nor in wealth of exploitable territory. And England has reached the zenith of her industrial period, the maximum of her political development; the figures of the birth-rate in the industrial towns are diminishing, and emigration has almost ceased. The State is becoming the protector of a demagogic and decadent {398} crowd. The United States seek to conquer new territories for their imperialist race. But the Latins possess in South America a rich and almost uninhabited continent, and in the north of Africa the French are in process of founding a colonial empire which will rival Egypt in wealth and importance, and will reach from Morocco to the Congo and from Dakar to Tunis.
Reclus calculates that Latin America could feed a hundred persons per square kilometre. While the natality of the Anglo-Saxon cities of the Atlantic seaboard in the United States remains stationary the Latin American population is increasing prodigiously; it is to-day 80 millions, and a century ago, when Humboldt visited the New World, it was approximately only 15 millions. It is possible that by the last years of the present century the number of South Americans will have reached 250 millions; the equilibrium between Latins and Anglo-Saxons will then be broken in favour of the former.
America is thus an essential factor of the future of the Latin nations. The destiny of France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy would be different if the 80 millions of Latin Americans were to lose their racial traditions; if in a century or two America were to pass under the sceptre of the United States, or if the Germans and Anglo-Saxons were to attack and oppress the nucleus of civilisation formed by the Argentine, Uruguay, and Southern Brazil. Economically America would lose markets; intellectually, docile colonies; practically, centres of expansion. To-day Anglo-Saxons, Germans, Slavs, and Neo-Latins are balancing forces which may develop in harmony in the framework of Christian civilisation without wars of conquest and without ambitions of monopoly. The moral unity of South America would contribute to the realisation of such an ideal. A new Anglo-Saxon continent running from Alaska {399} to Cape Horn, built on the ruins of twenty Spanish republics, would be the presage of a final decadence. In the struggles of hundreds of years' duration between the Latin States and the barbarians, between Catholicism and Protestantism, between the French genius and the Teutonic spirit, between the Renaissance and the Reformation, the Latins would have lost the last battle.
America is a laboratory of free peoples. Dr. Charles W. Eliott, rector of the great University of Harvard, has studied the contribution of the United States to modern civilisation. Arbitration as a universal principle, toleration, universal suffrage, material well-being, and political liberty seem to him to be the characteristics of North American culture. In the Latin South we encounter similar principles. Arbitration is the basis of international relations; tolerance from the religious point of view is in process of development. Political liberty is still more a matter of Constitutions than of custom; but the liberal political charters, adapted to the principles of modern civilisation, are the ideal of these republics. When the wilderness is peopled by new races, democracies will grow to maturity within this scaffolding, and universal suffrage, individual rights and tolerance will be realities.
In Latin America, above all among the southern nations, one cannot conceive of the restoration of the old social order, or of despotism and religious inquisition. The new continent, whether Saxon or Latin, is democratic and liberal.
If as in the time of the Holy Alliance the theocratic peoples were to ally themselves--Catholic and warlike Austria, Germany, dominated by Prussian feudalism, Russia, mystic and formidable--the whole American continent would be the bulwark of liberty. If Germans and Latins or Latins and Anglo-Saxtons were to fight between themselves the overseas {400} democracies would greatly contribute to the vitality of the Latin race. If in a Europe dominated by Slavs and Germans the peoples of the Mediterranean were forced to withdraw in painful exodus towards the blue sea peopled by the Greek islands and symbols old as the world, it is probable that the ancient myth would be realised anew, and that the torch which bears the ideal of Latin civilisation would pass from Paris to Buenos-Ayres or Rio de Janeiro, as it passed from Rome to Paris in the modern epoch, or from Greece to Rome in the classic period. America, to-day desert and divided, would save the culture of France and Italy, the heritage of the Revolution and the Renaissance, and would thus have justified to the utmost the fortunate audacity of Christopher Columbus.
[1] _Essai sur le gouvernement de la Nouvelle Espagne_, vol. i.
[2] _Works_, vol. ii. p. 160.
[3] _National Life and Character_, pp. 102 _et seq_.
{401}
INDEX
_Names in italics are those of literary men, philosophers, &c._
NDX
A.B.C., the (federation), 348-9
Aberdeen, Lord, 64
Absolutism, 51
_Acosta_, 247
African elements in Spain, 40-1
African race, _see_ Negroes
Agriculture, 384-5
_Alberdi_, 236
Alcantara, President of Venezuela, 110
Alva, Duke of, 30
America, Anglo-Saxon, 16, _see_ United States
America, South, the conquest of, 16, 44; early Constitutions, 82
Anarchy, military (86-94); leads to dictatorship, 88; spontaneity of, 89; in Colombia, 201; in the tropics, 222-31
Andes, San Martin crosses the, 67
_Andrade_, 183, 256-7
Antilles, the, 222
Arabs in Spain, 40-1
Aranda, 64
_Aranha, Graça_, 268
Arbitration, Court of, 347, 399
Argentine, the, 48, 77-8; first Constitution of, 83; 92 (134-46); revolution in, 134; early Constitutions, 134; federation of, 135; democracy in, 135; Constitution of 1826, 137-8
Artigas, 89, 127
Autocracy, follows revolution, 88, 93
_Avellanada_, 255
Ayacucho, 71
_Ayagarray_, 307
Aztecs, the, 47, 53, 149
_BALMES_, 274
Balmaceda, President of Chili, 170-8
_Barreto_, 273
Basques in S. America, 364
Belgrano, 61, 66
_Bello_, 246, 251-2, 272
_Bentham_, 245
_Bilbao_, 236-7
Blanco-Encalada, 125
Bolivar, 61, 63-9; youth of, 70; as general, 71; President, 71; downfall of, 72; character and principles, 72-80, 81-3, 102, 113, 122-3
Bolivia, 80, 122-6
Bonaparte, 88, 91
_Bourget, Paul_, 15
Boyer, President of Hayti, 229
Brazil (180-90); revolution in, 180; slavery abolished, 189; revolution in, 189
Buenos Ayres, 65
_Bunge, C. O._, 279
Bustamente, 150-1
Bureaucracy, 376-7
CABILDO, the, 98
California, Japanese in, 326
Canning, 393-4
Canovas, 314
Carabobo, 76
Caracas, Congress of, 348
_Caro_, 253-4
Carrera (Guatemalan), 224
Casimiro-Ulloa, 117
Castes, inimical, 91, 370
Castillo, 115-6
Castro, General, 105
Catholicism in S. America, 286
Caudillos, the, 16, 89, 94-5, 365-70
Central America, 83, 222-6; confederation of, 347
Chamberlain, Mr., 346
Charrua Indians, 131
Chibcha Indians, 47
Chili, 48, 92, 104 (164-79); social revolution in, 178, 342
Chivalry, literature of, 34
Church, the, in the colonies, 52-3
Cid, the, 34
Cities of Spain, 30, 33, 38, 40
Civil wars, 371
Clemenceau, M., 15
Clergy in Spain, 42
Cochrane, Lord, 68
_Coolidge, Professor_, 321, 335
Colombia (201-12); anarchy in, 201; parties, 202-3
Colonies, the Spanish (44-57); life in, 54-7; revolution, 58
Commune in Spain, 38
_Comte_, 274-5
Conquest of S. America, 16
Conquistadores, the, 45-8, 93
Constitutions of Chili and Venezuela, 82; of Bolivia, the Argentine, and Colombia, 83; of Venezuela, 103; of Chili, 104; of Venezuela, 105; of Colombia, 203-4; of Greater Colombia, 204; of Ecuador, 214; of Central America, 233
Convention, the French, 88
Cortez, 45
Costa-Rica, 225-6
Creole, the, 29, 50, 59, 360-1
Cuba (313-22); civil war in, 315; purchase mooted, 317; racial factors, 318
_DARIO, RUBEN_, 261-5
Decadence of conquerors, 44, 50, 85
Democracy in Spain, 37-40; in S. America, 93
_Diaz, G._, 255-6
_Diaz, Leopoldo_, 258
Diaz, President of Mexico, 77, 155-63
Dictators, the, 16
Directory of Buenos Ayres, 82
Don Quixote, 34
ECHENIQUE, President of Peru, 115
_Echeverria_, 254
Economic Problems (378-86); loans, 379, 381; foreign capital, 383
Ecuador, 92-3 (213-21)
Encyclopædists, the, 65, 81
England, policy of, 64; influence of, 83, 390
Equalitarianism, 63
_Estrade, Angel de_, 268
FALCON, President of Venezuela, 106-7
Faustinas I. of Hayti, 229
Federation, in Spain, 35; Bolivar's prophecies of, 77; _see_ Unity
Feijó, Diego, 184-5
Feudal system, 30, 38
Flores, Dictator of Uruguay, 132-3
Flores, J. J., founder of Ecuador, 87, 213
_Fombona, Blanco_, 265, 268
_Fouillée_, 277
_France, Anatole_, 15
France, intellectual influence of, 81-2
Francia, Dr., tyrant of Paraguay, 191-5
Free cities of Spain, 30, 35, 40
GARCIA-MORENO, President of Ecuador, 215-21
German capital, 292-4
German colonists, 291-7
German Emperor, the, 323
German Peril, the, 290-7
Gongorism, 34
Goths, the, 41
Guarani Indians, 191
Guatemala, 223
Guayaquil, 213
_Guizot_, 245
_Guyau_, 278
Guzman-Blanco, Dictator of Venezuela, 101, 106-8; policy of reconstruction, 108-10; return to power, 110-12
HALF-CASTES, 93, 338; _see_ Mestizos
Hawaii, annexation of 303; Japanese in, 325-6
Hayti, 226-31
Heredity, in the Spanish republics, 97
Hispaniola, 226
_Hostos, E. de_, 272-3
_Hugo, Victor_, 261, 263
_Humboldt_, 50
IBERIANS, 31-2, 40-1
Ibero-Americans, 283-9
Ideology, political, 235-48
Ignatius of Loyola, 33
Incas, the, 47
Independence, wars of, 29, 58-81
Indians, at conquest, 46-8, 91; distribution of, 93, 352-3
Individualism, in Spain, 31-5; in S. America, 88
Industrialism, rise of, 94-6
Inquisition, the, 42, 52
Isthmus, States of the, 77
Itaborahy, 186
Italians in South America, 364
Iturbide, Emperor of Mexico, 61, 82, 149-50
JACOBINISM, 81
Japan, 393
Japanese Peril (323-31); emigrants, 327; spies, 329
_Jaurès_, 15
João VI., 180-2
Juarez, Mexican Dictator, 152-5
Junin, 71,76
Juntas, 30; colonial, 60; revolutionary, 84
KING, _see_ Monarchy
LA PAZ, revolt at, 65
La Plata, confederation of, 343
_Lamartine_, 244-5
Lansdowne, Lord, 83
_Larreta, E. R._, 269
_Lastarria_, 236-9
Latifundia, 92, 98
Latin race, the, 17; future of the, (387-400); decadence of, 395
Latin spirit, the, 17; in S. America, 287-9
Lavalleja, President of Uruguay, 127-9, 131
Law, influence of Spanish, 54
_Lee, Gen. Homer_, 325
Liberators, the, 66
Liniers, 65
Literature, 249-70
Lodges, revolutionary, 65-81
Lopez, Argentine _caudillo_, 89, 139
Lopez, tyrants of Paraguay, 196
Loyola, 33
_Lugones_, 265
MAIA, J. J. de, 82
"Maine," sinking of the, 315
_Marmol_, 254-5
Marti, 315
Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, 154-5
Mestizos, 103, 356-60
Mexico, 48; first Constitution of, 83, 92-3 (149-63); intervention of the French, 153
Militarism, 86-94
_Mill, James_, 272
_Mill, J. S._, 274-5
Miranda, 66, 81, 83
Miscegenation, 48-50; in Peru, 194; _see_ Indians, Mestizos, Negro, Race
Monagas, J. T. and J. G., Presidents of Venezuela, 103-5
Monagas, J. R., President of Venezuela, 107
Monarchy in Spain, 35-8; its relations at time of revolution with the revolted colonies, 60-1, 63
Monks, 52-3
Monopoly, 51-2
Monroe Doctrine, 290-1, 302-4, 392
_Montalvo_, 239-40
Montezuma, 48
Montt, President of Chili, 168-9
Mosquera, President of Colombia 206-7
_Münsterberg, Professor_, 294
Mystics of Spain, 33
_NABUCO, J._, 274
Nationality, early phases of, 84
Negroes, first introduction of, 49, 50; distribution of, 53, 355-6, 358-9
_Nervo, A._, 265
New Granada, 77
_Nietzsche_, 278
North American Peril, 298-312
Nuñez, Rafael, President of Colombia, 201, 206-11, 276
_OLMEDO_, 251
Olney, Secretary, 300
Orbegoso, 123
Ordoñez, President of Uruguay, 132
Oribe, President of Uruguay, 129
PACIFIC, Confederation of the, 343
Paez, President of Venezuela, 61, 87, 91, 101-6
_Palma, R._, 267
Panama, 303; the Canal, 387-8
Pando, 126
Paraguay, 191-7; the great war in, 196-7
_Pardo, Felipe_, 252
Pardo, President of Peru, 117-9
Paz, 140
_Pearson, Karl_, 362
Pedro, Dom, I., 182
Pedro, Dom, II., 185-6, 188
Pelucones, 92
Peru, 68, 70-1; first Constitution, 82; 92-3 (113-121); War of Independence, 113, 342
Philosophy, 271-80
Picaro, the, in literature, 34, 43
Pierola, President of Peru, 120
Pitt, 83
Plutocracy, rise of, 94; future of, 97
Poincaré, R., 14
Political conflict, the, 92; problems, 365-77
Popham, Sir Home, 65
Portales, President of Chili, 118, 124, 165-8
Porto Rico, 303
Portuguese in S. America, 45-6
Posadas, 61
_QUINTANA_, 250, 252
Quiroga, General, 139-40
Quito, 65
RACE, problems of, 283-9, 351-64
Regenerators, the, 87
Renaissance, the, 45
Republics, early S. American, 39, 61
Revolutions, 65-81; ideology of, 81-5; 94
_Reyles, Carlos_, 206-9
Rio Branco, 187
Rivadavia, Dictator of the Argentine, 135-8
Rivera, President of Uruguay, 127-30
Rocafuerte, President of Ecuador, 214
_Rodo, J. E._, 133, 264, 266, 274
Rome, in Spain, 33
Roosevelt, Theodore, 304, 318
Root, Secretary, 300
Rosas, Argentine tyrant, 139-46
_Rousseau, J. J._, influence of, 81
_SALAVERRY_, 123-4, 254
Salisbury, Lord, 300
Salvador, 223
San Domingo, 226-31
San Martin, Protector of Peru, crosses the Andes, 67, 68-9, 72
_San Martin, Zorilla_, 256
Sancho Panza, 53
Santa-Ana, President of Mexico, 150-1
Santa-Cruz, President of Bolivia, 87, 114, 125
Santana, Dictator of San Domingo, 230
Santander, President of Colombia, 87, 205
_Sarmiento_, 242-3
Sierra, the, 91-2
_Silva, J. A._, 265
Slavery, 104; abolished in Brazil, 189
Slavs, the, 394-5, 397
Soublette, 103
Spain, early history of, 30-43; religion in, 33; laws of, in S. America, 285
_Spencer, Herbert_, 86, 274-6
Stoicism, 33
Sucre, 70-1, 213
TAFT, President, 320
Tammany Hall, 301, 320
Teresa, Saint, 33
Territorial overlords, 97-8
"Thirty-three, the," 128
Toussaint Louverture, 228-9
Trade, future of, 388-9
Tyranny, advantages of, 96
_UGARTE, MANUEL_, 266
United States, supremacy of, 299 intervention in South and Central America, 303-4; race troubles in, 308, 311; future influence of, 390-1
Unity, problems of, 335-50
Urbina, President of Ecuador, 215!
Uruguay, 127-33
VALENCIA, Convention of, 105
Varas, 168
Vargas, Dr., President of Venezuela, 102
Velasco, 125-6
Venezuela, 82, 92-3, 101-3; civil war in, 106; revolution of 1870, 108
_Verlaine_, 263
Viceroys, the, 51
_Vivanco_, 115
_Voltaire_, 81
WASHINGTON, 82
Weyler, 315
Wood, General, 318-9
YEGROS, Consul of Paraguay, 192
ZALDUA, DR., President of Colombia, 211
Zambos, 358-9
Zollverein, 305-6, 346, 349
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