HISTORY AND POLITICS
The political history of the River Plate Republics begins with the wars
which made possible the great Declaration of Independence from the
dominion of Spain on the 25th of May, 1810. Their most romantic history
is that of those wars and that of the old Colonial days immediately
preceding them. As, however, the only slight pretension of the present
book is to be informative on matters of fact, romance must wait on,
perchance, the author’s more leisured moments and some outline be
presented now of the events which had most influence in making Argentina
and Uruguay what they are to-day.
Having overthrown the rule of Spain the former River Plate colonies
became involved in a long internecine struggle for supremacy of power.
For fifty years the United States of the River Plate were most disunited
by local jealousies and the rural districts were only usually unanimous
in their refusal to submit to the Government at Buenos Aires, composed
of men who, as the rural populations said with a great amount of truth,
were endeavouring to rule even more despotically than did the Viceroys
and by purely Viceregal methods. Were that submitted to, the revolution
would have been in vain as far as concerned the substitution of
democratic principles for those of tyranny. This was no doubt true, for
the politicians of Buenos Aires neither knew, nor had had any opportunity
of knowing, methods of Government other than those under which they
themselves had been brought up. Had they known it, though it is only
just to them to say that they did not in the least realize the fact, rule
under them in the way they proposed to rule, would have been merely an
exchange of King Stork for King Log. The country was, however, quick to
grasp the menace, and it is only very regrettable that rivalry between
its several contemporary would-be saviours produced so long a continuance
of political chaos, during which newly acquired Liberty and Independence
had no chance to develop the vast natural resources which had lain idle
in consequence of the Spanish policy of squeezing the life out of the
goose which would otherwise have laid so many golden eggs for Spain. In
consequence of civil war it was, as has been indicated, not much before
1860 that it began to lay any appreciable number of such eggs for itself
or anyone else. It only began to do so under two tyrants: Rozas in the
South and Artígas in the North. Both were strong men and patriots; and
both held power, in spite of opposition both open and treacherous, for,
as later history has shown, the good of the respective territories
they had brought under their sway. Harsh as were their methods, these
were suited to lawless times. Of each of them it has been said that he
permitted no thief but himself to live.
As a fact neither were thieves nor sought nor attained overmuch wealth
for themselves. Both, however, forestalled otherwise inevitable
assassination by giving their enemies no shrift at all; once these had
been ascertained. And both succeeded in establishing police systems
throughout their territories which would rival the European secret
services of to-day.
Nothing went on unknown to them; from short-lived conspiracies to petty
thefts. And the punishment for each offence inflicted by them was swift
and closely fitted to the crime.
No one has yet attempted a complete whitewashing of Rozas; though, in
every political crisis in which the Government has shown any apparent
weakness, old men have sighed for his reincarnation. Artígas, on the
other hand, whose memory not so long ago rivalled those of the most
traditionally cruel old-world potentates, is now become the Saviour and
National hero of Uruguay. The apostle of the democratic principle.
Truth about his personality probably lies somewhere between these two
views, but there is no doubt but that he and Rozas were men needed for
and suited to their times. Fearless and far-sighted, they made order
out of chaos, and individually cruel as may have been many of their
acts, it was their iron rule which laid the foundations of the admirable
constitutions of what are now the separate Republics of Argentina and
Uruguay. Rozas really founded the Argentine Republic as much as Artígas
did the “Banda Oriental,” part of which is now Uruguay. But the period
of strife which succeeded the Declaration of the Independence of the
whole of the River Plate Territories had lasted just over half a century
when General Mitre was chosen as the first President of a United Federal
Argentina.
He was succeeded by Sarmiento, who did much to develop agriculture and
was the great pioneer of education. Sarmiento had been a political
exile in Europe, where he learned much; and, being a man of exceptional
intellect, stored up his acquired knowledge and enlightenment for his
country’s subsequent great good.
Since the first Presidency of General Mitre there has only been one
political revolution which affected the whole of Argentina, the one which
in 1890 ousted President Juarez Celman and was immediately succeeded by
the financial crisis with which the name of Baring is chiefly associated
in the European mind.
Both that revolution and the crisis were the natural outcome of a disease
which would have completely ruined any country less rich in natural
resources than Argentina. That disease was complete political and
financial corruption; which then came to a head and necessitated drastic
operation. Since then the Argentine nation has advanced in political and
financial health with extraordinary and unparalleled rapidity.
The history of Uruguay has run on different lines since she emerged from
the older Banda Oriental. She has been the almost constant victim, until
very recent years, of the fervent patriotism of her rural population; in
rebellion, often with much apparent justice, against what it has from
time to time considered to be the prejudicial doctrinarianism of the
town-bred men who have directed her Government in Montevideo. In any case
the rural population has always been in a more or less declared state of
rebellion against the Government. For many years the “White” party was
in power and the “Red” in revolution. Now for a long period the “Reds”
have kept place and nominal power, from which until comparatively very
recently the “Whites” have never ceased to endeavour to oust them.
Let it not, however, be thought that either the retention of power by
one party or its attempted overthrow by the other has in Uruguay been
due to personal ambition or corrupt greed on either side; as has been,
unfortunately but very frequently, the case in other South American
Republics. To think this would be to do a cruel injustice to the national
character, the leading characteristics of which are uprightness and
honesty in thought or deed. No Uruguayan would ever have rebelled had
he not thought that the policy of the existing Government was gravely
prejudicial to the vital interests of his country, nor would an Uruguayan
statesman have ever clung to power unless he had been conscientiously
convinced that the policy of his party was the only true way to that
country’s best development and prosperity.
This may seem to many readers as yet but little acquainted with Uruguayan
political and commercial History as the mere expression of an enthusiasm
for the Uruguayan character on the part of the present writer. But a
closer examination of that History than is within the scope of the
present work will show the views just above expressed to be nothing more
than a statement of cold fact. In part proof of which stands the total
absence from Uruguayan Financial History of any repudiation or avoidance
of the National indebtedness. Long periods of Agricultural paralysis,
often almost total (in a land which depends exclusively on agricultural
products), due to civil strife and all the heavy outlay consequent on
such wars, have never led Uruguay to depart from the strictly gold basis
of her monetary system. Her paper dollar has always retained its full
face value as a token and remains the best dollar on the exchange markets
of the world. And the world-wide credit of private Uruguayan firms stands
high above that of similar firms in other, even the most prosperous South
American Republics. This is due, and due only, to the very high standard
of political and commercial morality obtaining, and which has always
obtained, in Uruguay.
Now, there is good ground for the hope that the country is persuaded
that the best way to attain the greatest possible general prosperity is
to beat the sword, once and for ever, into a ploughshare. At the same
time it cannot be hidden that “State Socialism gone mad” (to quote an
Uruguayan description of the policy introduced and pursued by Señor
Batlle y Ordoñez[10]) strained the patience of the rural population and
that of a goodly proportion of Montevideans as well, to a degree which
was perilously near to breaking point. He wished, not only to improve
all conditions of his country, but to make Uruguay an object-lesson in
State Socialism to the world. His political enemies, or rather opponents,
say that, while he has read the works of Henry George, in some confused
translation or other, neither his education nor his acquaintance with
such subjects fits him to judge of even the works of a now somewhat
discredited political economist; also that he, the ex-President, is a
potentially dangerous lunatic. But note that no one, even those who
feared most from his persistent political and financial adventures, have
ever even so much as hinted that his policy was dictated by other than
quite honestly intentioned conviction. Uruguayans are seldom corrupt and
seldom suspect venality in their fellow-countrymen.
Modern Argentina history commences with the renaissance of the country
immediately after the upheaval of 1891, and that of Uruguay a much less
number of years ago. Till these periods, political unrest was a constant
factor in both countries. Now, a National revolution has become a thing
unthinkable in Argentina; while it grows every day less likely for
responsible or influential men in Uruguay to instigate or encourage aught
that might impede her triumphal march to rivalry with the prosperity of
the great sister Republic on the Southern bank of the River Plate.
The recent death of Dr. Saenz Peña, an Argentine President whose high
personal character and statesmanlike rule fully entitled him to the
respect he received from all parties and classes throughout the Republic,
is a serious loss to his country. Fortunately, however, the Presidential
office is now held by Dr. Victorino de la Plaza, formerly Vice-President,
a man of acknowledged soundness of judgment and tact and of very many
years’ experience in Ministerial, Diplomatic and Parliamentary life.
As for Uruguay, her chief reliance must be on the deep patriotism of
her leading men and on their good sense to keep a peace which is the
only true road to the general prosperity of a country the rich natural
endowments of which cannot develop if men and horses are taken from the
plough, as they constantly were in the past by one party or the other, to
partake in the mutual destruction of civil war.
As is insisted on very often in these pages, the chief need of these new
countries is population; an end most surely defeated by conditions which
not only repelled all immigration but killed off a large proportion of
the men already there. There is good reason to believe that all this and
more is now fully appreciated by every responsible man in Uruguay; and,
once convinced of the right course to be followed for the country’s good,
there is not a Uruguayan who will not follow it with all the patriotic
doggedness which formerly caused the lamentable continuance of civil war.
Both Argentine and Uruguayan financial policies and methods are now
sound. Argentina is prosperous with great future increase of prosperity
before her, and Uruguay is now well on the high road to similar
prosperity and as brilliant a future. Both are at peace with one another
and their neighbouring Republics; all of whom are much too busy with
their own interests and too democratic in spirit to dream of aggressive
war. Added to which only Uruguay and Paraguay are small enough to need
ever to covet further territory.
Brazil does not: Argentina has more than once already in the past refused
to take Uruguay into her Federation: Paraguay, except as a constant
nuisance to herself and everyone near her, is, and will be for many years
to come, a negligible quantity in South American politics. The Andine
frontier now fixed between Chile and Argentine is never again likely to
be disturbed by either. Uruguay may possibly cast longing eyes one day at
the rich grazing lands of Southern Brazil; but she is more than unlikely
ever to attempt to acquire these by force. Their annexation by her could
only occur on the initiative of the inhabitants of those regions; who,
unless Brazil is able in the future to keep her financial and fiscal
house in better order than at present, might very conceivably prefer to
be under the Government of Montevideo rather than that of Rio de Janeiro.
Even then, the question of different languages would present a difficulty
to the assimilation of the State of Rio Grande del Sul by its Southern
neighbour.
One great step in the democratic progress of the Argentine Republic was
made three years ago on the initiative of Dr. Roque Saenz Peña. This was
the passing of a law which introduced the ballot and made the exercise
of the franchise obligatory on a universal male suffrage of native-born
Argentines and foreigners of two years’ residence.
It was a great reform made necessary by many considerations. The chief
of which were the public indifference to all matters political which did
not immediately concern Industry or Commerce and the profound discredit
into which elections, parliamentary and municipal, had fallen as a
consequence of that indifference; the whole effect of which was to leave
the internal government of the country entirely in the hands of a mostly
mercenary caste of professional politicians. This caste was habitually
guilty of electoral corruption and malpractices which, in the absence of
any interested public opinion, continued to work in a vicious circle by
causing complete abstention from any exercise of the vote on the part of
all citizens of the Republic except those forming the small gangs which
were under the orders of the “Caudillo” or political manager of each
district. These gangs went to the poll, at so much per head in cash and
many illicit privileges, in order that there should be any voting at all
to declare the due re-election of the men who wielded the political power
in the National or Provincial Legislatures or in the Councils of the
various Municipalities.
The substitution, under the new Law, of genuine for fictitious elections
has also operated as another, and, probably, final blow struck at the
Provincial Oligarchies, reference to which has been made in another
chapter.
No one outside South America would really credit the depths of corrupt
absurdity in which elections in Argentina were permitted to remain so
late in these days of her general enlightenment and prosperity. That
reform in this highly important respect was so long a-coming was due
to individual preoccupation with their own affairs of the people of a
country the material development of which was being accomplished with
bewildering rapidity.
Men had no time to occupy themselves with such a tough, and rather
dangerous, job as the dethronement of the professional politician; who,
in the higher spheres of Provincial Government, usually belonged to one
of the widely influential groups of the historically dominant native
families. Public morality had sunk to a strangely low level in comparison
with the ever-increasing commercial rectitude of the country, when the
most startling tale of electoral fraud or administrative corruption would
be received with only a shrug of the shoulders and an indulgent smile,
as of wonder why the narrator was making so much ado about such a very
ordinary occurrence.
The management of elections in the Federal Capital and in the Provinces
differed only in method; the results were uniform triumphs for the
party in power. In the Capital the authorities went to the trouble of
collecting the certificates of citizenship (the deposit of which at the
polling booths was the form of voting under the old system) of dead and
absent men and sometimes of hiring others, and with filling in blank
forms of these with fictitious names, in sufficient quantities to swamp
any attempted voting by an opposition. In the Provinces, the elections
were always stage-managed by the district commissary of Police. He led
up the necessary gang of peon voters, to whom he served out a dinner of
_carne con cuero_, wine and a $5 bill each, to celebrate the occasion
and to indemnify them for any trouble they might have been put to by
their attendance. Furthermore, the faithful electors knew that in the
case of their getting into any scrape in the future which might otherwise
cause trouble between themselves and the police, they would stand every
possible chance of dismissal with a friendly caution; while were the
case one of assaulting an enemy that enemy would stand a better chance
of imprisonment than they. These are not traveller’s tales, but facts
well known to every resident in Argentina and, I suspect, similar facts
are within the experience of everyone living in one or other of most
of the Latin American Republics. So that the quantity of ink spilt in
the European papers over the accusations brought against ex-President
Huerta, to the effect that he had improperly influenced the late Mexican
Presidential Election, reads comically to most South Americans.
Now, in Argentina, all qualified persons must vote, or be mulcted in a
penalty for not so doing. And it must be your own fault if anyone else
knows which way you have voted. Even the innate native conviction that
elections are rites instituted for the exclusive benefit of the already
elect must have suffered severe shock from Dr. Saenz Peña’s Law. It will
now be difficult to obtain a price for a mere promise the fulfilment or
otherwise of which cannot be ascertained by the purchaser.
The passing of the new Law really seems a miracle when its interference
with long-established custom is considered. It has perhaps crowned the
patrician caste with the glory of heroically complete self-sacrifice.
Certainly it heralds the twilight of the gods who have guided the
country’s destinies since their ancestors led its rough armies to victory
under the autumnal sun of May, 1810 (the sun which is blazoned in gold
on the blue and white of the National banner), who fought for or opposed
Rozas and Artígas and upheld the National prestige in the wearisome
conflict with Paraguay.
In the old days of musket or rifle and bandolier, the Argentine
patricians freely gave their lives and fortunes for the PATRIA. Now in
frock-coats and silk hats, they have given up for her the right to all
power not derived from individual merit or capacity. In doing so they
have made an offering to democratic Liberty greater by far than any
attained during the sixty years of Rebellion and Civil War which began
with the dawn of the nineteenth century.
The immediate results of this unchaining of the power of a proletariat
which has not yet attained a very high educational or intellectual level
will nevertheless be watched with interest not unmingled with anxiety by
all concerned with political economy in the abstract and the progress and
peaceful welfare of Argentina in particular.
In this connection it is perhaps remarkable that whereas the choice of
each New President has for many years been a foregone conclusion during
at least the last year or so of his predecessor’s term of office, no such
lengthy period of predestination was anywhere observable in the case of
the successor to Dr. Victorino de la Plaza, who vacates the Presidential
chair this year.