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.
{387}
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.
{397}
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
ENDX
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