Part 3
The form of government under the constitution adopted in 1833 is republican with legislative, executive and judicial branches. The legislative power is vested in the National Congress, consisting of a Senate and House of Deputies, the former, under the latest census, being composed of 37, and the latter of 108 members. Senators are elected for a term of six years, one-half the number being elected every three years. Members of the lower branch of Congress are elected for three years by direct vote, the apportionment being one for every 30,000 inhabitants or fraction of not less than 15,000. Congress is in session from June 1 to September 1 of each year. During the recess of that body a permanent committee consisting of seven senators and seven deputies acts for Congress, and is consulted by the executive upon all questions of importance.
The president is elected for a term of five years by electors who are chosen by direct vote. He is ineligible to election for two consecutive terms. The salary of the chief executive is 60,000 pesos, equal to about $20,000 in U. S. currency. He is assisted by a Council of State consisting of 11 members, six of whom are appointed by Congress and five by the president; and also by six cabinet ministers who are named by the executive, but are responsible to the Congress.
The constitution having become an established law, Chile made rapid progress along the road of national life, leading to order, authority and prosperity. But it was not until Manuel Montt, who was president from 1851 to 1861, had put down two revolutions that order and executive authority were firmly established, and the force of organized national defense demonstrated. In 1861 Montt was succeeded as president by Jose Joaquin Perez, who continued as chief executive for ten years. The condition of law and order that was established and maintained by the government previous to his election continued throughout his two administrations, and national authority was extended and enlarged until liberty of action and speech was insured to every citizen of the Republic. By his political moderation and conciliation, President Perez established a feeling of internal peace and security that had not been previously felt in the country. Unfortunately Chile was soon to be disturbed again by a war-cloud upon the peaceful horizon. Having secured their own freedom, and established an independent government, the patriotic people were not content to remain indifferent to the arbitrary actions of Spain in taking forceful possession of the Chincha Islands in 1865. By force of public opinion and popular sentiment, President Perez was compelled to make an alliance with Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, to defend the interests of South American Republics against the domination of Spain.
Spain sent a fleet to blockade the ports of Chile, which was not a difficult undertaking, as the Chilean navy then consisted of one gunboat, the _Esmeralda_. On November 26, the _Esmeralda_, under command of Captain William Rebolledo, made a brilliant coup by attacking and capturing the Spanish corvette, _Covadonga_, which daring deed was accomplished within view of the Spanish squadron blockading the harbor of Valparaiso. The admiral commanding the fleet was so humiliated by the fact that one of his ships had been taken by the Chileans that he committed suicide on board his flagship, a few hours afterwards.
To avenge the loss, and apparently as an act of spite inspired by the humiliating incident of the _Covadonga_, Spain sent a more powerful fleet to Valparaiso, and on March 31, 1866, bombarded the city, causing considerable loss of life, and destruction of property to the value of fifteen million dollars.
At that time Valparaiso had no land fortifications nor means of resisting an attack from a hostile fleet, and Spain’s action in bombarding the port has been generally condemned. This apparent unjustifiable destruction of a defenseless city was the last armed demonstration of Spain in South America. For three centuries she attempted to govern Chile as a colony, and for the first fifty years of national life of the Republic the threatening attitude of the parent government continued as a menace and an obstacle to progress and industrial development. Peace was not established between the two countries until 1884, but after the bombardment of Valparaiso, there was no further hostile demonstration, and Chile was permitted to direct the force of her energies towards building up neglected national institutions and developing the natural resources of the country.
The bombardment of Valparaiso forced upon Chile a realization of her defenseless position against attack from a naval force. Without a navy to defend her extensive coast country, or fortifications with which to protect her ports, she was at the mercy of any maritime power. To meet this requirement and to strengthen her national position, she acquired a formidable navy, the most powerful in South America, and constructed modern fortifications in all the principal ports. Since that time Chile has been regarded as one of the most formidable and aggressive naval and military powers among the Latin-American Republics.
During the administration of President Perez the liberal element in the Republic began to assert itself, and to demand political reforms. This was the first demonstration and show of resistance against the conservative church party, which had been in control of the government since its formation. The program of the liberals was: “The absolute guarantee of personal liberty; that local governments shall be invested with that complete independence necessary for the thorough exercise of their prerogatives; that the different branches of government shall be independent of each other, that all persons shall be equal before the law and that all special privileges shall be abolished.” This was a move from the oligarchy towards democracy. The liberals scored their first victory in 1868, when Congress passed an amendment to the constitution, making the president ineligible to reëlection. The laws providing for civil responsibility, for political treason, and imprisonment for debt were also abolished by the same Congress.
Don Federico Errazuriz, who was elected to the presidency in 1871, was a man of scholarly attainments, and had had a long and varied experience in public life. He had been minister of foreign affairs, of the interior, of justice, and of war, and had served in both branches of the legislative body.
During the administration of President Errazuriz, the liberal party succeeded in passing a number of reformatory measures, among which was one providing that the clergy should be amenable to the civil authorities, and further that all sects might worship in churches erected by private enterprise. The president also decreed that space should be reserved in catholic or public cemeteries for the interment of dissenters, who could be given the right of burial according to the form of their respective denominations. Against these acts the clerical party filed a remonstrance which was signed by the Archbishop of Santiago; and members of Congress who voted for the measures, as well as magistrates who should attempt to enforce the laws, were threatened with excommunication from the church. But those progressive measures still remain upon the statute books of Chile.
Don Anibal Pinto succeeded Don Federico Errazuriz as president in 1876. His administration was early confronted with a financial crisis, and in 1878 the government authorized the banks to suspend specie payment, and guaranteed their emission of paper money to the amount of $15,500,000, which was made redeemable in coin on August 31, 1879. A year later the government found it necessary to resort to a second issue of paper currency to the amount of $6,000,000.
The church question, which had been made the paramount political issue in previous campaigns continued with unabated zeal and acrimony throughout President Pinto’s administration. In 1878 the Archbishop of Santiago died, and the government recommended the appointment of Don Francisco de Paula Taforo as his successor. The clergy of the country opposed the appointment, but the government maintained that inasmuch as the State supported the ecclesiastical officials, the civil authorities should name the church dignitaries. After a bitter contest lasting for several years an apostolic delegate was sent from Rome to make report on the affair. He was expelled by President Santa Maria, who succeeded President Pinto, and the victory was won by the government.
Throughout the administrations of Presidents Perez, Errazuriz, and Pinto the country made rapid advancement along the road of national progress and civilization. Previous to that time all reforms and advanced measures were initiated and directed by the executive, whose political power made him practically the government.
Neither the House of Deputies nor the Senate made any pretense to parliamentary rule or order. In both national and private life the poor but honest element predominated. People earned a legitimate livelihood by honest industry, and wanton extravagance was little known.
THE WAR OF 1879.
There are various versions of the causes leading up to the war between Chile, Peru and Bolivia, but the immediate cause of hostilities, which placed Chile in possession of the greatest nitrate fields in the world, was the cession by the Bolivian government to the Anglo-Peruvian firm of Gibbs & Company, of the right to work the nitrate deposits north of twenty-four degrees south, to construct a mole at Antofagasta and build a railway to some mines in the interior. Later this firm disposed of a portion of its concessions to a Chilean company, the “Compañia Salitres y Ferrocarril de Antofagasta.” When the Bolivian government discovered that Chilean capital and industry were developing the desert into a source of wealth, it laid an export bounty of ten cents per hundred weight upon manufactured nitrate of soda. The Compañia Salitres y Ferrocarril objected to paying export duties upon the products of its properties, and appealed to Chile for protection. Bolivia then threatened to seize all nitrate in the hands of exporters. The Chilean government protested against this arbitrary action and sent a fleet to blockade the ports of Antofagasta, Cobija and Tocopilla. On February 14, 1879, Chile took possession of Antofagasta and sent troops to the interior to protect the property interests of its citizens. General Hilarion Daza, President of Bolivia, then declared war, expelled some Chilenos from the country and confiscated their properties. Thus the fraternity and harmony of interests of the neighboring Republics were destroyed, the trumpets of war sounded, and the result was a change in the map of South America.
Peru tendered her services as mediator and sent special envoys to Santiago and La Paz. But Chile,--having knowledge of a secret treaty celebrated between Bolivia and Peru in 1873, the purpose of which was declared to be the mutual guarantee of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the two republics, and mutual defense against aggression,--the proposition was looked upon by Chile with distrust. Peru proposed that Chilean troops should evacuate Antofagasta; that the three republics should guarantee a neutral administration of affairs. Chile demanded the annulment of the secret treaty of 1873, and that preparations for war on the part of Peru should cease. These propositions were rejected, and Chile declared war against the allies on April 5, 1879.
Hostilities began at once and in earnest, both upon land and sea, continuing until Chile gained her final victories in the battles of Miraflores and Chorrillos, January 13, 1881, and four days later the victorious troops marched into Lima and occupied the Peruvian capital. The campaign was a succession of brilliant victories and achievements for the Chilean arms.
Peru believed her navy superior to that of Chile, but she had not reckoned the valor, skill and zeal of the patriotic Chilean officers, whose feats won for them not only victory, but the admiration of the world, and established for Chile an international reputation as a fighting nation. Equally brilliant and successful was the campaign of the land forces. In the battles of Pisagua, Tacna, Arica, and finally at Miraflores the Chilean troops were invincible.
Among those who distinguished themselves in the navy during the war with Peru and Bolivia was Captain Arturo Prat, who gave up his life in the battle of Iquique, where, after his ship, the _Esmeralda_, had been disabled and was being rammed by the Peruvian cruiser _Huascar_, leaped from the deck of his own vessel to that of the enemy, and with his sword attacked single-handed the forces that confronted him in overwhelming numbers. There is in the Plaza Intendencia, Valparaiso, a handsome bronze monument erected to the memory of Arturo Prat, whose heroic deeds and valiant service form some of the most brilliant chapters in the history of his country. Admiral Patricio Lynch was another naval officer with a foreign name who distinguished himself in the war with Peru, and later received the title of general for meritorious service in the Chilean army. During the occupation of Lima, by the Chilean forces, Admiral Lynch was placed in command of the troops in the Peruvian capital, where he remained in charge until April, 1884, when the treaty of peace was ratified and Chile withdrew her army from the conquered country.
By the treaty of peace celebrated with Bolivia on December 11, 1882, Chile obtained all the latter’s seacoast, including the port of Cobija, privileges for constructing railways into the interior and twenty per cent. of Bolivian port customs.
The treaty between Chile and Peru, which was signed at Ancon, on October 20, 1883, contained provisions that led to complications which still leave the question of final settlement in dispute; complications that resulted in a discontinuance of diplomatic relations, which at times became so strained that another conflict at arms seemed imminent. Peru ceded to Chile the province of Tarapaca, forever and unconditionally. In lieu of $10,000,000 cash indemnity, and as security for payment of same, the territory constituting the provinces of Tacna and Arica passed into the possession of Chile for a period of ten years, at the end of which time the ownership of the territory was to be determined by a vote of the legal residents of those provinces. Whatever the result of the election, the country to which the provinces should be annexed, engaged to pay the other $10,000,000 in cash. The time limit for this provision of the treaty expired in 1894, and Peru not being prepared to comply with its requirements, Chile continued in possession of the territory, and the question of Tacna and Arica remained a disputed one.
THE TACNA AND ARICA QUESTION.
A few years later Peru became more prosperous through the development of her rich mineral resources and began pressing for a settlement of the question. To the arbitration proposition presented by Peru Chile maintained that there was nothing to arbitrate. In 1905 Peru presented her side of the question in the form of a written protest against certain proposed industrial improvements in the disputed territory. The reply of the Chilean government to the arguments offered in the protest was an able statement of the case, which left little doubt in the minds of those familiar with the subject that it was Chile’s intention to retain possession of the territory in question.
In June 1905 diplomatic relations between the two republics were resumed, and Peru sent Don Manuel Alvarez Calderon as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Santiago, where he was warmly received by President Riesco and his Cabinet Ministers. In his address in presenting his credentials to the President of Chile, on November 4, 1905, Señor Calderon stated that he was charged with the task of settling outstanding questions in conformity with treaty stipulations, meaning, it was understood, the Tacna and Arica question. In February 1906 the Chilean government named Don Rafael Balmaceda as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Peru.
The more amicable relations resulting from the appointment of diplomatic representatives continued until 1909 when Chile proposed the taking of the plebiscite on certain bases which were then considered unacceptable by Peru, and diplomatic relations were again broken off by the latter country. The main points at issue in this instance involved the questions of who were to constitute the voters, who should preside at the proceedings of the plebiscite, and at what date the election to secure an expression of the residents of the disputed territory should take place.
During the year 1912 an effort was made on the part of the respective governments to agree upon terms acceptable to both countries for the celebration of the plebiscite provided for in the treaty of Ancon, to determine the nationality of the provinces of Tacna and Arica, and the following general agreement was reached:
Peru agrees that all inhabitants, whether Chilean or Peruvian, shall have the right to vote, provided that they enjoy electoral rights under the constitutions of their respective governments. This is the proposition made by Chile in 1909, except that she was willing to include foreigners amongst the voters, while Peru insisted on their exclusion. Chile assuming that the plebiscite would then take place at once, proposed six months’ residence as a necessary condition for voters, and Peru demanded that the time be extended to three years. The plebiscite under the latest arrangement is to be postponed for twenty-one years, during which interval it is hoped and believed that the prejudices engendered by the war, and the ill-feeling existing on the part of the citizens of both republics living in the disputed territory will greatly change for the better, and lessen the chances of a conflict in the final settlement of a difficult question of long standing.
Peru is willing to accede the claim to preside at the taking of the plebiscite, and the president of the Supreme Court of Chile will preside. The rest of the board will be composed of two Chileans and two Peruvians, and final decision will be reached by the majority.
The most important feature of the arrangements, however, is the contemplated treaty of commerce and navigation, by which both countries hope to create such a powerful influence for peace that the question which for so many years has proven an insuperable difficulty to the best efforts of the statesmen of both countries will play a secondary and unimportant part in the relations between the two republics.
Chile is no longer disposed to treat with Peru in a conciliatory manner, or submit to arbitration a question in which she has the right of possession. Having settled peacefully the long standing boundary dispute with the Argentine Republic, which for a quarter of a century hung like a war cloud over the Cordilleras, and got possession of Bolivia “tregua” (tentatively), by means of a treaty of peace and amity, Chile is no longer afraid of a triple alliance with the Argentine, Bolivia and Peru, which once menaced her security and national life.
When the Spanish-American colonies united to secure their independence from Spain it was mutually agreed that there should be no “no man’s land.” To attain this end it was covenanted that the boundaries of the new Republics should be those assigned to each as a colony. In many instances those boundaries were ill defined, and in others conjectural or imaginary. As explorations proceeded these errors were discovered and naturally gave rise to territorial questions between neighboring nations.
Chile had but two neighbors and she had boundary disputes with both. The dispute with the Argentine led to the erection of a fort and the founding of a settlement in the Strait of Magellan by Chile in 1843. From that time until the boundary award by King Edward in 1903, the two republics were in a continual controversy over territorial limits, which on more than one occasion led them to the brink of war. With her other neighbor, Bolivia, Chile had a boundary dispute which has had far-reaching consequences. A _modus vivendi_ which seemed to promise lasting peace was agreed upon. Contrary to expectation, however, the agreement produced war, procuring for Chile another neighbor and still another territorial dispute. Previous to the war of the Pacific, the province of Antofagasta, which was Bolivian territory, separated Chile and Peru, but as a result of that war Chile came into possession of the province of Antofagasta and consequently became a neighbor to Peru. Surrounded as she was then with three Republics individually and collectively maintaining a hostile attitude to her independent and aggressive policy, Chile was placed in a peculiarly delicate and dangerous political position. If one of her three neighbors made a move in its boundary question the other two pressed for a settlement of similar claims.
During the civil conflict in Chile her three neighbors took advantage of the internal disturbance to urge settlement of their boundary questions. And when the relations between Argentina and Chile became so strained as to make war imminent, Bolivia and Peru assumed a most aggressive attitude in demanding a settlement of the questions growing out of the war of ’79. Chile has not forgotten these acts of her neighbors, but her attitude is not one of resentment. Her desire is for peace, as has been demonstrated by her generous and amicable adjustment of differences with Bolivia and Argentina; peace at home and abroad, but peace with honor. She governs her sword in accordance with the motto of the Castilian Hidalgo: “No me desenvainas sin causa; no me envainas sin honor.” (I do not unsheath my sword without cause; I do not sheath it without honor.)
The territorial questions of Chile with Argentina and Bolivia have been definitely settled, and the three countries have been greatly benefited thereby. Chile and the Argentine have been relieved of the enormous drain upon their resources in the purchase of ships and preparations for war, and under treaty arrangements capital is seeking investment in Bolivia in the development of its natural resources. The only outstanding territorial question that Chile now has to deal with is that relating to Tacna and Arica.