Having set forth two principal sources of Peruvian income, let us
now proceed to a third. When los Señores Althaus and Rosas appeared
in Paris last autumn as the representatives of the Government of
Peru, among other national securities which those gentlemen offered
for a further loan of money, were the railways of Peru. They are six
in number, only one of which is finished according to the original
contracts. The amount of mileage however is considerable, so also may
be said to be their cost, for the Government has paid to one contractor
alone no less a sum than one hundred and thirty millions of dollars.
There are other railways whose united lengths amount to about 150
miles; with one exception they cost little, and without an exception
they all bring in much.
These do not belong to the Government. The Government railways cost
enormous sums and bring in nothing; and it may safely be said that
they will never figure, honestly, in the national accounts, except
as items of expenditure. The Government of the day would only be too
glad to become cheap carriers of the national produce, if there were
any produce ready to carry. But the Government built their railways
without considering what are the primary and elementary use of
railways. It is incredible, but none the less true, that the Peruvians
believing the mercantile 'progress' of the United States to spring
from railways, thought that nothing more was needed to raise their
country to the pinnacle of commercial magnificence than to build a
few of these iron ways, and have magic horses fed with fire to caper
along them; especially if they could get an American--a real go-a-head
American--for their builder. And they did so.
The railway fever has had its virulent type in all parts of the
world where railways have appeared. In Peru from 1868 to 1871-2
this fever was perhaps more active and deadly than anywhere; than
in Canada, even, which is saying much, for there it took the form of
a religious delirium. The Peruvians believed that if they offered a
great and wonderful railway to the deities of industry, great and happy
commercial times would follow. Just as they believe that give a priest
a pyx, a spoon, some wine, and wheaten bread, he can make the body and
blood of God; so they believed that give a great American the required
elements, he could by some equally mysterious power make Peru one of
the great nations of the earth.
Mr. Henry Meiggs[7], of Catskill 'city' in New York State, was on
this occasion selected as the great high-priest who was to perform
the required wonders. Give this magician a few thousand miles of iron
rails to form two parallel lines, and a steam engine to run along them,
and the vile body of the Peruvian Republic should be changed into a
glorious body[8] with a mighty palpitating soul inside of it; the body
to be of the true John Bull type for fatness, and the Yankee breed for
speed.
This new meaning of the doctrine of transubstantiation was preached
to willing and enchanted ears. Ten thousand labourers of all colours
and kinds were introduced into the country. 'By God, Sir, there was
not a steamboat on the broad waters of the Pacific that did not pour
into Peru as many peones as potatoes from Chile.' These ten thousand
men all went up the Andes bearing shovels in their hands, and singing
the name of Meiggs as they went. Millions of nails, and hammers
innumerable, rails and barrows, sleepers and picks, chains, and double
patent layers, wheels and pistons, with many thousand kegs of blasting
powder 'let in duty free,' with all the other infernal implements and
apparatus for making the most notable railway of this age[9], poured
into Peru marked with the name of Meiggs. You could no more breathe
without Meiggs, than you could eat your dinner without swallowing dust,
sleep without the sting of fleas or the soothing trumpet of musquitoes.
Meiggs everywhere; in sunshine and in storm, on the sea and on the
heights of the world, now called Mount Meiggs; in the earthquake[10],
and in the peaceful atmosphere of the most elegant society in the
world. The wonderful activity on the Mollendo and Arequipa railway,
carried on without ceasing, produced an ecstasy of hope, and also an
eruption of blasphemy. Every valley was to be exalted; every Peruvian
mountain, hitherto sacred to snow and the traditions of the Incas,
should be laid low by the wand of Meiggs; the desert of course should
blossom as the rose: no more iron should be sharpened into swords;
ploughshares and pruning-hooks should be in such demand, that every
blade and dagger or weapon of war in the old world would be required to
make them. And a highway should be there, in which should be no lion,
even a highway for our GOD. All this mixture of trumpery metaphors were
poured into the ears of the enchanted Peruvians for the space of three
years and more. The railway as far as Arequipa was at length finished,
the Oroya railway was begun.
It will probably never be finished.
Robert Stephenson is reported to have said once before a Railway
Committee: 'My Lords and Gentlemen, you can carry a railway to the
Antipodes if you wish; it is only a matter of expense.' The Peruvians,
aided by the archpriest Meiggs, 'the Messiah of railways, who was to
bring salvation to the Peruvian Republic,' and steadfastly believing in
the Meiggs' method of transubstantiation, commenced building a railway,
not to Calcutta, but to the moon[11].
As early as 1859 the Oroya Railway began to be thought of seriously,
and the late President of Peru, with two other gentlemen of character,
were appointed a commission to collect data and make calculations for a
railway between Lima and Jauja. Nothing, however, was done until 1864,
when Congress authorised the Government, Castilla then being President,
to construct a railway to Caxamarca, with an annual guarantee of 7 per
cent. for twenty-five years.
The railway fever now began to increase in force and virulence, and
in 1868 the President of the Republic was authorised to construct
railways from Mollendo to Arequipa, Puno and Cuzco; from Chimbote to
Santa or Huaraz; from Trujillo to Pacasmayo and to Caxamarca; from Lima
to Jauja; and others which the Republic might need--a very respectable
order to be given in one day. The Oroya Railway was to be 145 miles
in length, and to cost 27,600,000 dols. To Puno the length was to be
232 miles from Arequipa, and the cost 35,000,000 dols. From Mollendo
to Arequipa, 12,000,000 dols., the length being 107 miles[12]. Ilo
to Moquiqua, 63 miles, 6,700,000 dols. Pacasmayo to Caxamarca, or
Guadalupe, or Magdalena, 83 miles, 7,700,000 dols. Payto to Piura, 63
miles. Chimbote to Huaraz, 172 miles, 40,000,000 dols.
Immediately after this small order was given, and Meiggs began to
fill the world with the sound of his name, the Lima editors commenced
their fulsome and disgusting eloquence, which day by day held all
people in suspense. 'As puissant as colossal are the labours of the
administration of Col. Don José Balta, who, without offence be it said,
has a monomania for the construction of railways and public works--the
infirmity of a divine inspiration in a head of the State.'
What the infirmity of a divine inspiration may be we will not stay to
enquire. Goldsmith was called an inspired idiot: and perhaps this was
what the learned editor meant to say of Col. Balta.
He goes on: 'The administration of Balta has converted the nation into
a workshop. We say it in his honour that he has constructed rather than
governed; but he has constructed well and firmly. He has done more
than this, he has created and conserved the habit of work in all the
nation, demonstrating by the argument of deeds that revolutions spring
principally from idleness.' 'Balta has cast a net of railways over
the country which has taken anarchy captive. Without any difficulty
might it be argued that the time of Balta will be the Octavian Era of
Peru[13].'
Enough of this. Suffice it to say that among all these oratorical
colonels, generals, lawyers, ministers of state, and accomplished
editors, there was not one who had the honesty or the pluck to stand
up and declare that it was all false which had so eloquently been said
of the Oroya and the Arequipa Railways. They are neither the railways
of the age nor of the day. There is one short railway in South America,
the construction of which called forth more skill, pluck, and endurance
than all the Meiggs railways put together, and this one railway has
already earned in the first quarter of the century of its existence
more money than all the government railways will ever earn during the
next age. Hundreds of these inflated colonels and generals, judges,
ministers of state, and accomplished editors, must have passed over the
railway, which, running through a tropical forest, connects the Pacific
with the Atlantic Ocean. Meiggs himself must have known it well; but
neither he nor any of the inspired idiots who drowned him in butter had
the valour to make mention of it by one poor word. The bridge over the
Chagres river is of more utility, as it will win more enduring fame,
than all the bridges on the Oroya, including those which 'are sixteen
thousand feet above the level of the sea.' The Oroya bridges bear the
same relation to those on the Panama Railway as the feat of the man who
walked across the Falls of Niagara bears to the economy of walking. As
Blondin was the only man who made any profit out of that performance,
so Meiggs, the Messiah of railways, will be the only person who will
for some time to come profit by the building of the Oroya and Lima line
of railway. It is surely impossible that all the reports one has been
compelled to give ear to of great silver mines and mines of copper
existing on this line can be false. Yet mining, especially in Peru,
is not free from danger; it is also not a little mixed up with lying
and cheating, and it has a historical reputation for exaggeration. The
copper mines on the Chimbote line, however, are quite another matter.
If those on the Oroya can be demonstrated to be equally good, and the
silver mines only half as good and as great, Peru may yet lift up her
head. But he will be a bold man that shall apply to English capitalists
for the first loan to Peruvian miners or to be invested in Peruvian
mines, and the days of faith and trust will not have passed away when
the money shall have been subscribed.
Although it was a poet who said that
'Borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry,'
yet it is as true as if it had emanated from the Stock Exchange, the
_Times_ monetary article, or any other recognised fountain of practical
knowledge; and as for the native edge of Peruvian industry, it is about
as dull as that of a razor not made to shave but to sell--as dull, in
fact, as the edge of a hatchet made of lead.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] For the biography of this estimable gentleman see 'El
Ferrocarril de Arequipa Historia, documentada de su origen
construcion é inauguracion.'--Lima, p. 96. 'Ese hombre
era ENRIQUE MEIGGS, cuyo nombre va unido inseparable é
imperecederamente á los trabajos mas colosales de las
republicas del mar Pacifico.'
[8] For these and similar ebullitions of profanity I am
indebted to the Lima newspapers of the period, and one or two
anonymous pamphlets.
[9] Paz-Soldan.
[10] With a liberality on a scale equal to all his
achievements, Mr. Meiggs subscribed $50,000 for the sufferers
in the terrible earthquake which desolated Arequipa and
destroyed Arica in 1868.
[11] It is difficult to be original in this age of metaphor.
Only this morning, April 26, and quite by accident, I came
on a little print which is published, I believe, in Callao,
where I found the following:
'RAILROADS IN THE CLOUDS.
'Looking over our exchanges we found the following. It is
from the New York _Sun_ of January 16, and gives an account
of Mr. John G. Meiggs being "interviewed" in that city.
'Mr. John Meiggs, brother of Henry Meiggs, the "King of
Peru," as the millionaire contractor is called in South
America, is lodging in the Clarendon Hotel. He is a tall,
large man, past middle age, and with a clear penetrating
hazel eye. He has an important share in the management of
his brother's affairs. "Peru," he said, "is richer in the
precious metals than any other country in the world. Our
engineers in building the railroad from the coast to Puno
have come across a hundred silver mines, any one of which
might be profitably worked, if in the United States. If
these mines are worked, the railroads we have built will be
a blessing to the country."
'Reporter--"I understand that there are marvels of
engineering on some of your railroads?"
'Mr. Meiggs--"Yes. One of our roads crosses the mountains at
16,000 feet above the level of the sea. Some of the bridges,
too, are very lofty, and built with a skill that would do
credit to any part of the world."
'Reporter--"Your brother is said to be worth several millions
of dollars?"
'Mr. Meiggs--"Whatever he obtained in Peru he has fully
earned, and whatever he owed there or elsewhere he has paid.
He has not been a seeker of contracts. On the contrary, he
has rejected contracts that the Government wished him to
take."'
[12] To which may be added $2,000,000 more for the conveyance
of water along the line nearly from Arequipa to Mollendo.
[13] Ferrocarril de Arequipa, pp. lxxxi-ii.