URUGUAY: SOME NOTES AND IMPRESSIONS
Little countries, like little people, have a knack of making themselves
interesting. The simile might be further pursued—especially among the
Republics of South America—in that the smaller they are, the more noisy
and obstreperous shall we find their histories have been. But there is a
certain dignity and much to admire in the little Republic of Uruguay, and
its country is one of the most attractive.
After the impression of vastness left on the wanderer in the Argentine,
Uruguay seemed a very small affair indeed; no more than an Argentine
province. It was a corrective to this impression of littleness and
consequent impotence to remember that even little Uruguay was larger
than England and Wales, and not so much smaller than the whole of Great
Britain. It covers 72,210 square miles, against the 88,729 of Great
Britain. We know, however, that mere area does not matter greatly in
national importance, compared with population, and the total population
of Uruguay is only two-thirds that of the city of Philadelphia.
It may be a small country and a smaller people, but the spirit of great
things flames in the breast of Uruguay. Here is how one of its authors,
Señor Ambrosio L. Ramasso, in his well-known work _El Estadista_, begins
his chapter on the warrior spirit of his race:
The production of the soil, exuberant; fresh food for
nourishment, in abundance; a frugal people, sustaining
themselves chiefly upon beef, flour, and _mate_; the land
undulating and extremely fertile, the climate without excessive
rigours, and the need for clothing moderate; the horse always
at hand; hospitality unlimited, and the host who gives it
generous; nature luxuriant, beautiful, full of tones and
superb changes, inviting to admiration, and the enjoyment
of that drowsiness and indolence which the benignity of the
climate carries with it; the lack of the habit of work, due
to the facility with which the physical necessities may be
satisfied; the war that continues with the animals; all these
factors had two decisive results in the making of the child of
this country. On the one hand, they made him full of passion,
with no manner of brake thereon; and on the other, they did
not suppress the fighting instincts of his ancestors, but
rather encouraged their growth. His chief tendency had to be
inevitably towards war, either as the outcome of his natural
heritage, or as an escape valve for activities not otherwise
employed, or yet again by giving expansion to that passionate
and vehement nature of the Latin race in a climate where
vitality is such that all things tend to expand and overflow.
A further condition which favoured the bellicose tendency in
the Uruguayan was his excessive power of imagination; a faculty
which then, as now, he had in richest measure....
And in this manner Señor Ramasso goes on for several pages, showing how
nature had marked out the Uruguayan for a warrior and fighting as the
master passion of his life. The history of the country is certainly
sufficient proof of this spirit, and it still exists in high degree,
though it would seem that the bad old days of the sword and the gun have
now given place to an era of political strife, in which the tongue and
the pen are the more favoured weapons.
Uruguay retains, in Europe, at least, an unenviable reputation as a
hotbed of revolutions, and I am far from supposing that we have seen
the last of these. But forces are at work which will make the upheavals
of the future more decorous than those of the past. During our summer
in Montevideo, all the elements of a first-class revolution were in
existence, but they spent themselves in a wordy warfare among the
newspapers, in public demonstrations and counter demonstrations; not
a shot was fired, though the President’s suburban retreat at Piedras
Blancas, a few miles from the city, was continually under strong military
guard.
“You will still hear much talk of revolution among our young men at the
cafés,” said Uruguay’s most famous philosopher and litterateur to me on
one of the many occasions when we discussed the entertaining politics of
his country. “That is one of their amusements, and will continue to be
so for some time yet, but every new batch of emigrants that lands in the
port of Montevideo helps to banish further the revolutionary era, and if
we could but divert some portion of the great stream of emigration that
rolls past our shores each year into the Argentine, nothing would be more
effective in producing a peaceful and prosperous Uruguay.”
These were the words of Señor José Enrique Rodó—_el gran Rodó_, as he is
affectionately termed throughout Latin-America—and therein we have the
explanation of the bellicose history of this charming little country.
Uruguay was left too much to itself, its people so long content to let
the natural fruitfulness of their land supply their simple needs, that
the only outlet for their energies was to quarrel among themselves, and
thus grew up the two political camps, the _Blancos_ and the _Colorados_,
concerning which I do not recall any approximately accurate description
in the writings of any foreign author on Uruguayan politics. Even so
skilled an observer, so admirable a student of political conditions, as
Viscount Bryce, late British Ambassador to the United States, fell into
absurd misstatements of facts in what he wrote of Uruguayan affairs in
his “South America: Observations and Impressions.” As I have not had an
opportunity of reading Lord Bryce’s well-known work, and personally know
it only through numerous extracts translated into the native journals
of the Argentine, Uruguay, and Chili, it would be ungracious of me to
say anything in criticism of it, beyond the passages thus coming to my
notice. Certainly his explanation of the two parties into which Uruguay
is divided is no better than the nonsense one hears talked among casual
visitors on whom some local resident has been performing the operation
known as “pulling his leg.” Translating from one of several articles
on the work in question, which appeared in _La Tribuna Popular_ of
Montevideo, Lord Bryce is made to write to this effect:
The children of Uruguay are born little Blancos or little
Colorados. It is the political heritage of the early days of
Independence. Scarcely any ever desert their colours. In a
White district it is dangerous to wear a red necktie, just as
it is in _Yolanda_ (? _Irlanda_—Ireland) to show an English
badge.
This is described by the editor as “a very pretty paragraph,” and here
is another which he quotes as “a curious paragraph that might be
regarded as an example of Mr. Bryce’s Yankee humour” (for he is under the
impression that the literary Viscount is a “Yankee Constitutionalist”):
General Oribe mounted on one occasion a spirited white horse.
On seeing this, all his sympathisers followed his example by
mounting themselves on beautiful white steeds. Hence came the
name of the White Party. General Rivera, the irreconcilable
enemy of Oribe, mounted himself in turn on a superb horse
of a reddish colour, in contrast to his terrible rival. The
Riveraists then sought for coloured steeds, and mounted on
these followed their chief. Henceforward the Red Party disputed
successfully for power with the White Party.
This, of course, is mere moonshine. It may possibly have originated in
one of these fertile Uruguayan imaginations of which we have heard,
but it lacks historical truth. I have already indicated that Blancos
and Colorados (the latter word, by the way, does not mean “coloured,”
but signifies “red,” or “ruddy”) may live together in perfect amity.
So incorrect is the statement that every child is born a Blanco or a
Colorado, that there are numerous families in the country divided in
politics, and in my own short experience I have met instances of brothers
who adhered to different parties. I recall in particular two brothers
who, in a perfectly friendly discussion, admitted that they took no real
interest in the politics of the country and were largely indifferent
to the course of affairs, so long as Uruguay continued to prosper, but
who, before the evening had gone, were disputing so hotly the respective
merits of the two parties that they almost came to blows, the one being
clearly a pronounced Blanco and the other an equally tenacious Colorado.
Another very curious misstatement of fact is cited from Lord Bryce’s book
by the _Tribuna_, which observes that the paragraph is a revelation of
“the rich imagination of its author.” Our eminent publicist is alleged to
have written to this effect with reference to revolutions in Uruguay:
When a revolutionary movement is about to break out in
Uruguay, the organisers make an appointment to meet, mounted,
at a certain place and on a day agreed upon beforehand. The
Government always knows well in advance of this, and is able
to possess itself of all the horses in the country, keeping
those in a safe place so that they may not fall into the power
of the revolutionaries. The latter, therefore, remain perforce
on foot. The horse is the soul of Uruguayan revolutionists. It
is the heroic tradition of the glorious epoch of the gauchos.
Without horses the rebels are lost.
The amusement of the Uruguayan editor over these paragraphs and many
others equally distant from the truth was entirely justified, and I
have quoted them here (roughly retranslating them) out of no desire to
belittle the work of one of our ablest writers, for whom I have the
greatest admiration, but merely to show how erroneous one’s impressions
may be as the result of a too brief visit, and lack of opportunity to
study at leisure the condition of a country, as well as its historical
past, as these have been expressed in the language of the country.
Such misconceptions are familiar to us, and to be expected in the
writings of irresponsible lady globe-trotters, but not in the sober
and authoritative pages of one who has given us such a classic as “The
American Commonwealth.”
It is no easy matter to furnish a satisfactory explanation of the two
political parties of Uruguay, and when I find so competent an authority
as Mr. C. E. Akers, in his “History of South America,” affirming that
there are really no distinctions between them, that each professes the
same ideals of government and seeks merely to wrest political power from
the other, I attempt an explanation only with trepidation. Not that I
purpose a detailed account of their origins and evolution, for that
would involve an extremely long disquisition, and would scarcely hold
the attention of an American reader, but that any attempt to distinguish
between them in a few words is attended with difficulty and apt to be
misleading.
The root difference of the two parties can best be described as
Nationalist versus Progressist. Broadly, the White Party is the
Nationalist Party, and the Colorado the Progressist. The colours
distinguish the Spanish Colonial origin of the one party from the
democratic origin of the other. That is to say, the Blancos have always
tended towards exclusiveness and the assertion of the superiority of the
white race, whereas the Colorados, originally sneered at by the Blancos
as savages (_salvages_), on account of their more liberal ideas, which
embraced the aborigine and the emigrant alike, have always stood for
the wider conception of democracy. At certain times in their history,
the Colorados have even accepted the title of “savages” as a compliment
to their liberalism; to their maintenance of the primal rights of man.
Thus, and not otherwise, have the colours of the two parties a real
significance, and the red of the Colorados is also a cry back to the
French Revolution, the influence of which on South American democracy
has been profound. I have already mentioned in my passing reference to
the home of Garibaldi in Montevideo, that that great champion of liberty
commanded a Brazilian regiment in support of General Rivera when General
Oribe was laying siege to Montevideo, and that the city was defended
principally by French, Italians, and Brazilians against the onsets of the
Blancos, until Oribe was eventually defeated completely by the Argentine
general, Urquiza. This historical fact is entirely in support of what
I have written, and will help to elucidate the party origins. In these
later years, although the politics of the country are still split up
between Reds and Whites, it has become more common to refer to the latter
as Nationalists, they themselves having adopted that title. Hence appears
a distinct and appreciable difference between the two political camps.
As might be supposed from what I have very roughly indicated as to the
respective origins of the two parties, the Blancos are strongest in the
provinces, and draw most of their support from the agricultural and
stock-raising classes, while the Colorados preponderate in the capital
and the larger towns, where modern ideas of democracy find a more
fertile soil. The policy of the Blancos is exclusiveness—“Uruguay for
the Uruguayans” might be its battle-cry, but, paradoxically, not for the
original Uruguayans—while the Colorados are for encouraging immigration
in every way, for the building up of a large and active population,
without the slightest regard to racial origins, believing that once
radicated in the country, the whole would weld itself into a complex
nationality, just as we see in the making in Argentina.
[Illustration: A TYPICAL COUNTRY ROAD IN URUGUAY.]
[Illustration: HIDES DRYING AT CURING FACTORY NEAR MONTEVIDEO.]
It may be fortunate for Uruguay that the Colorados have been in power for
many years, and are likely to dominate its politics for many years more.
Yet not altogether fortunate, as the supremacy of one party over another
is good for neither, and leads to all sorts of governmental abuses,
although it seems to me that Red supremacy is better for Uruguay than
White. The population is much too small for so fruitful a country, and to
discourage the foreigner from becoming a citizen of the Republic, as the
policy of the Blancos would tend in their devotion to narrow Nationalist
ideals, might retard the clock of progress for generations. The crying
need of Uruguay is population, and not even the Colorados as a party
display sufficient energy in encouraging immigration, though individual
leaders grow eloquent on the subject and talk at great length about what
might be done, without being able to move the mass swiftly enough along
the path of progress.
I would not have you think that the Red Party has a monopoly of the truer
patriots. There are too many of its leaders whose sole ambition is to
get their hands into the public treasury, and in this they succeed all
too well. Politics from the profession of most men with ability beyond
the common, and place-seeking is the order of the day. The Socialist
movement, which has recently gathered great strength in the Argentine,
is still in its infancy in Uruguay and was represented at the time of
my stay there, if I remember aright, by only one member of the House of
Deputies, Señor Frugoni, who fought incessantly against everything in the
shape of public expenditure which was not calculated directly to benefit
the workers, and who was one of the four deputies that opposed in July,
1913, the increase of the payment of the national representatives by
$12 per day. Jobbery and bribery are rampant in the administration; the
Government is regarded by the ruck of politicians as their milch cow,
and though all public offices are remunerated modestly enough, there are
numerous ways and means of greatly augmenting official salaries. The
smallness of the population and the intimacy which exists between all the
members of the better classes naturally lay the officials open to every
form of personal temptation, and I never heard that “Deliver us from
temptation” was a popular prayer among them.
It would be an easy matter to give numerous examples of the abuses
that exist, but one will suffice. A burning question for many years in
Montevideo had been the paving of the principal streets with asphalt
in place of the stone sets, or _adoquines_, with which they had been
laid for generations, and which, as I have already mentioned, made
traffic over them extremely noisy and unpleasant. The contract for this
work attracted much competition from abroad, and one European firm was
even encouraged to bring over workmen, material, and machinery for the
treatment of one short street as a sample of their work. The said work
appeared to me in every sense satisfactory, and as the firm is a large
international organisation, capable of handling a contract of any
dimension, having paved the streets of many a city, it was natural to
suppose that it would be chosen to carry out the street improvements
of the Uruguayan capital. But no, a local ex-hotel-keeper was favoured
with this important contract! The manner in which he organised it was a
splendid lesson in the art of how not to do it. The principal avenida was
torn up, traffic dislocated for weeks, yet no asphalt was laid, because
the enterprising contractor had omitted to secure the asphalt before
removing the cobbles. Certain streets were barred to traffic for months
on end, mountains of dug-out earth were beaten hard under the feet of
pedestrians, who had to climb over them on their way to and from their
houses, so that when eventually they were removed, they were so solid
that the workmen had to break them up with pick-axes. Everywhere one was
met with barricades of stones and earth; confusion reigned supreme.
The greatest scandal of all is that laid at the door of President Batlle
y Ordoñez, and may yet assume the importance of an international dispute.
During the presidency of his predecessor, an international syndicate,
in which I believe both French and English shareholders invested
several millions of money, was granted a concession to carry out a huge
enterprise, which would so vastly enhance the appearance of the town and
add to its wealth that, once effected, not even Rio de Janeiro could be
cited as a finer example of a modernised city. At the present time, the
poorest part of Montevideo is that lying along the southern margin of
the promontory, eastward towards the suburb of Ramírez. It has a rocky
fore-shore, and the water there is comparatively shallow, so that it
would be possible to reclaim a considerable amount of land along this
side of the town, and build a magnificent marine drive, extending all the
way from the oldest part of the city to the suburb mentioned, and thence
linking up with the fine promenade at Pocitos. Many maps of the city are
now in circulation with this improvement shown as though it actually
existed, the great highway by the waterside being marked as “Rambla Sud
América.”
All the preliminary work of surveying and getting ready for the actual
construction of the sea wall, and the reclamation from the water of an
immense new area for the extension of the city, was carried out by the
foreign company, under its duly authorised concession, its recompense
being determined by the lease for a certain number of years of the land
reclaimed. Then President Batlle came into power and calmly “squashed”
the whole affair. This high-handed action of his was based upon the
belief that it would be possible for the government to carry out the
improvement and enjoy to the full the increased revenue which would
immediately result from the new land made available for building, as
well as the enhanced value of all the property along the southern shore.
The undertaking is, of course, hopelessly beyond the compass of native
enterprise, and the action of the President may be ascribed to that vivid
imagination of which we have already heard as part of the mental make-up
of the Uruguayan. He by no means carried with him the sympathies of his
party in this matter, and many of the newspapers of Montevideo would grow
as indignant over the scandal of the Rambla Sud as the enterprising
European promoters of the scheme themselves.
Mention of this subject serves to raise the question of a very grave
defect in the constitution of the Republic. It is a strange anomaly
that in a country which prides itself upon its democratic spirit,
its President should be endowed with powers that are little short
of dictatorial. This is its legacy from the old days of military
predominance, when the Presidency went to the military officer who could
secure command of the army, just as surely as the Praetorian Guard used
to make and unmake the Cæsars of Rome. As a party, the Colorados are in
favour of reform, and would like to see a diminution of the power which
the constitution places in the hands of the President, but Señor Batlle y
Ordoñez, who not so many years ago was a struggling journalist, and still
as editor of _El Dia_ combines journalism with the business of President,
took the initiative in a new constitutional “reform” in 1912, which
speedily resulted in his becoming the most unpopular man in the country.
His earlier career had been that of a loud and strenuous Democrat and his
first presidency gave fairly general satisfaction, but when he returned
for a second time to the seat of power, his actions soon ceased to be
those of an essential Democrat.
Still he maintained a measure of public sympathy for the able manner
in which he handled national affairs—as the constitution, with all its
faults, works well, provided the President uses it only for the good of
the country—but the imperious spirit which he developed, and his harsh
treatment of political opponents, speedily changed the attitude of the
people, and when he launched his extraordinary scheme for reforming
the constitution, he found himself almost alone, with the overwhelming
majority of senators and deputies opposed to him. Being a man of
virility, he refused to trim his sails, and went straight ahead with the
reckless campaign, denouncing old colleagues who had fallen away from him
in terms of unmeasured abuse in his daily paper, and refusing to give any
of them the personal satisfaction of a duel, that being incompatible with
his office of President. A sort of comic opera situation thus developed,
the President as journalist lashing about him at his own sweet will in
his editorial columns, but refusing to meet the victims of his wrath at
the point of the sword or pistol in hand, as many of them invited him to
do!
The reading of some of Señor Batlle’s articles in favour of his proposed
reform might have left any one unfamiliar with the real import of the
movement with the impression that he was that rarest of mortals among
statesmen ancient or modern: the man who finds himself endowed with
powers so dangerous, if exercised without discretion, that he wishes to
curtail these for the protection of his fellow countrymen and to free
himself from the temptation of abusing them. Day after day he used to
hold forth in the editorial column of _El Dia_, on the dire possibilities
that might succeed to a country that placed itself under the almost
autocratic control of one man, on “the instability of unipersonal power,”
and “the anti-democratic character of absolutism.” To the onlooker all
this was vastly amusing, and to the intelligent mass of Uruguayans the
intention of the proposed reform was as transparent as glass. Señor
Batlle urged that an _ejecutivo colegiado_, to consist, I think, of seven
members, like the Swiss Federal Council, should be elected to co-operate
with the President in the government of the country, and that from this
executive body each new President might be chosen. In this way, he
contended, it would be possible to limit the authority of any President
by placing the executive power in the hands of a group. Of course, it
was obvious to all thinking people that what he was after was merely
to secure, before the end of his four years of office, the election of
seven of his personal friends to form this new executive, so that when
he had to withdraw from the Presidency he could still, from his home in
Piedras Blancas, work the puppets, and the chief of the puppets would
be his successor. He laid much stress in his newspaper advocacy of the
_ejecutive colegiado_ on example of Switzerland, which he was fond of
quoting as the ideal of a democratic state, but in no respect was there
the slightest resemblance between the Swiss method of government and that
proposed by him. The Swiss Federal Council is elected by the Federal
Assembly, and consists of citizens who hold no other public offices
and are engaged in no business or profession. But the seven (or it may
have been nine) who were to share the responsibility of the Uruguayan
President and thus intensify by seven or nine times the dangerous
character of the presidential power, were to be neither representative
of the people nor of the Colorado Party, but merely representative of
President Batlle.
A more preposterous suggestion could not have been made by the temporary
ruler of a sane people, and the surprise was that the President could
even muster his stage army of standard bearers and demonstrationists
who used to parade the town in favour of the “reform,” while he himself
was afraid to venture from his suburban retreat to the Government
House,—where he ought to have been in residence,—more than once every
two or three months and at unlikely hours. They used to have a healthy
habit in Montevideo of shooting a President who abused his power, and
Señor Batlle was so familiar with the past history of his interesting
little country that among the numerous articles published by him in _El
Dia_ to illustrate the instability of the present constitution was one
giving a list of all the Presidents from Rivera onward, with notes of the
disturbances which occurred during their terms of office, how so many of
them had to fly for their lives, how some were killed, and few indeed
completed their term without witnessing insurrection and sanguinary
disturbances. During his own previous term of office, the revolution of
1904 occurred, and he had a narrow escape from death by the explosion
of a mine. In the succeeding four years of Señor Claudio Williman’s
presidency, two revolutions occurred, one of these assuming serious
proportions. Hence President Batlle did not unduly flaunt his personality
in public places during our summer in Montevideo, in marked contrast, I
was told, to the manner of his previous presidency, when he went about
freely everywhere and was probably the most popular man in the Republic.
The most interesting episode in his strange campaign against popular
sentiment was the publication in his own journal of several paragraphs in
black type headed _Permanente_, which roused the ire of every person of
good taste throughout the Republic, and welded for once the whole press,
Blanco and Colorado, into one. As this incident throws a vivid little
sidelight on the politics of the country, I venture to translate the
paragraphs in question, which were reprinted daily in the Presidential
journal, and have probably only ceased to appear since the death of the
aged politician at whom they were aimed:
PERMANENT.
It is an undeniable fact, and well-known that Dr. José
Pedro Ramírez in 1873 purchased the vote of the Deputy
Isaac de Tezanos for the sum of 40,000 pesos, in favour of
the candidature for the Presidency of the Republic of his
father-in-law, Dr. Don José María Muñoz.
It seems very probable that the same occurred with regard to
the votes of the deputies Hermógenes Formoso and Vicente Garzón.
From publications in _El Siglo_ of that period, it would seem
that at the same time as he was thus purchasing these, Dr.
José Pedro Ramírez was accusing the Gomensor faction of having
offered nearly three times as much for the votes of the same
deputies—which he well knew to be a calumny, since he himself
had purchased them for much less.
The result of these infamies was the military mutiny of 1875,
and five lustres of misfortunes for the country.
All this notwithstanding, the Nationalist Party, the
Constitutionalists that still remain, and a few disaffected
Colorados are rendering homage to Dr. Ramírez, whom they
proclaim as the first, or one of the first citizens of the
Republic.
Those who so act are corrupting public morals and robbing
themselves of authority and prestige.
This extraordinary presidential-journalistic attack on an aged
politician, then so feeble and near his end that he died a few months
later, was occasioned chiefly because the journal _El Siglo_, one of the
most influential of the Colorado newspapers, with which Dr. Ramírez, as
a young man, was connected, and with which certain of his relatives are
now associated, had, in common with the entire press of the country,
strongly opposed the President’s suggested reform. For nearly forty years
the country had chosen to forget that Dr. Ramírez had so acted in 1873,
and he himself at that time publicly made confession of what he had done,
and withdrew from his journalistic post as an act of penance, although
assuredly he had in no wise sinned against the spirit of that time. The
spectacle of the President of the Republic using the columns of his own
private journal thus to attack the aged publicist who, in the forty
years following this admitted transgression, had done much to merit the
good opinion and win the homage of his fellow-countrymen, ranged every
journalist of any prestige against President Batlle and brought, as I
well remember, streams of telegrams from distant parts of South America,
from eminent statesmen and the leading newspapers, sympathising with the
victim of the President’s attack.
What may be the ultimate outcome of those strange events of the summer
of 1913, I do not know, but perhaps I have said sufficient about the
politics of the country to show that there is room for improvement. At
the same time, to do justice to Señor Batlle y Ordóñez, I recognise in
him a really strong man, and regret that his second term of office should
have been so marred by ill-considered and anti-democratic suggestions of
constitutional change. He had previously won a reputation for political
honesty which, even among his bitterest enemies, I never heard called
in question, and much that he did, even during his second stormy
administration, was entirely for the good of the country. I remember
that at the height of his battle with the Chambers and the public, he
promulgated a new law for the protection of animals, accompanied by a
presidential message worthy to be printed in letters of gold by the
R.S.P.C.A. and circulated throughout all Latin-America. He even went
so far as to prohibit boxing matches, as _el box_, a growing passion
in the Argentine, was beginning to acquire popularity in Uruguay. Had
his energies been more wisely directed and his undoubted strength of
character applied to the furtherance of certain much-needed public
improvements and to the real widening of the democratic basis of the
Constitution, he might have made his second administration a landmark in
Uruguayan progress.
Progress is inevitable, and if it has been retarded in Uruguay by the
frequent revolutionary disturbances, it has been none the less real. As
a matter of fact, we are apt to overestimate the importance of these
revolutions. Before the dawn of the modern commercial era, which has so
greatly developed the capital city, revolutions were doubtless vastly
disturbing and made the life of the community somewhat burdensome. But
it is surprising to note how large a proportion of the population have
survived these supposedly sanguinary affairs. You will see far more
elderly people in Montevideo than in Buenos Ayres, where men of over
fifty-five are rarities in the streets. The fact is that Uruguayan
revolutions have degenerated into something very much akin to the duel in
France, and they are usually fought where there is likely to be the least
danger to property, as Whites and Reds alike have come to appreciate the
advantages of modern domestic comfort, and the more beautiful villas
there are erected in the suburbs and surroundings of Montevideo, the less
likely are revolutions to occur. Most of those of recent date have been
really very little more serious than the old election rioting that used
to accompany political changes in our own country.
One effect of revolution, however, has been to produce a remarkable
shortage of horse flesh throughout the Republic. On the outbreak of an
insurrection, the Government used to “commandeer” horses everywhere, and
would clean an estancia of all its useful animals, handing over to the
owner so much worthless paper, which he was supposed to be able some day
to redeem for the loss of his horses. Not only so, but his _peones_ would
be pressed in like manner into the Government service, armed with rifles
and sent out to fight the revolutionaries. After periodic losses in this
manner, the estanciero adopted the policy of breeding and maintaining
just as few horses as he could possibly do with. Result: in Uruguay,
a country where horses should abound, the cavalry are insufficiently
mounted, a very considerable proportion of the Government troops being
without mounts. This fact, by the way, is the best comment that can be
passed upon Viscount Bryce’s paragraph quoted in the earlier part of this
chapter.
We have heard about the warrior spirit of the Uruguayan, but, strangely
enough, it does not manifest itself in a warrior nation. There is
no system of military service in the Republic, such as that of the
Argentine. Nay, until very recently the army was looked down upon by the
better-class families as a profession for their sons, and was no more
than the happy hunting-ground of all sorts of adventurers, the rank and
file being chiefly niggers, Indians, and half-breeds, while many of the
officers were themselves either of negro or Indian blood. Even to-day,
when men of good family are looking to the army for a career and military
training is being organised on European lines, the army is still composed
in large part of undesirables and is used entirely as a Government
machine. Both political parties have hesitated at compulsory service for
fear of each other. The Colorados have carefully nursed the army during
their long spell of power as so many paid fighting men to back up their
party at such times as the Blancos take arms against it. Here again, it
will be seen there is room for improvement in Uruguayan affairs.
I had not intended in these notes to be led into any lengthy discussion
of Uruguayan politics, as that is a subject which tempts one into such
labyrinthine byways that it is best left alone, and yet it is difficult
to say anything about the country in general into which political
considerations do not enter. I should have preferred to have enlarged
rather on the literary side of the people, which engaged me even more
than the politics and the warlike spirit—which, by the way, used to seem
to me curiously out of place when I passed the extremely modest little
building, about the size of a suburban police station, that does duty
for the Uruguayan War Office. But I find it difficult to touch with any
satisfaction on all the subjects that occur to me as worthy of note.
The literary activity is certainly remarkable when we bear in mind the
extremely limited public to which Uruguayan authors can appeal. Two
very stout volumes of a critical survey of Uruguayan literature were
published at the end of 1912, and these were but the advance guard
of others to follow, the work being designed to occupy several bulky
tomes. The roll of Uruguayan authors in poetry and prose is truly a
formidable one, though I doubt if more than two names would be known in
the United States, and these of living authors whose reputations, but
not their works, may be familiar to a small circle of American critics.
Juan Zorilla de San Martín is the great poet of the country, and José
Enrique Rodó its leading philosophic writer. Both are famous throughout
Latin-America and Spain, and both very remarkable men, who have had to
look to politics as well as to literature in their struggle for a living.
[Illustration: THE CALLE SAN MARTÍN, MENDOZA.]
[Illustration: A GLIMPSE OF THE RIVER MENDOZA.]
Señor Rodó, who is one of the deputies for Montevideo, is recognised as a
master of Spanish style, a great critic of literature, and a philosopher
in whom there are many points of contact with Lord Morley, as they belong
to the same liberal school of thought. Withal, he is one of the last of
the Bohemians, so far as that implies absolute disregard for sartorial
display and the unbusinesslike ordering of his daily life. You will meet
him at all strange hours of the night wandering about the streets, lonely
and contemplative, and if you glance at his shirt cuff when shaking hands
you will find it soiled and scribbled over with many pencilled notes. He
has all the old-world courtesy of the Spaniard, with the wider outlook
of the American mind, and, above all, a profound admiration for English
character and Anglo-Saxon civilisation. His opinion is sought on great
public questions and on matters of literature from all parts of South
America, and I have often thought it strange that this rather shabbily
dressed and retiring gentleman whom I used to meet wandering lonely in
the dusk up side streets, and with whom I would stop and gossip for five
or ten minutes on my way home, was the object of admiration of literary
circles wherever Spanish-American men of letters gathered together—_el
gran Rodó_!
Señor Zorilla de San Martín is of a different type, shorter in stature
and more pronouncedly Spanish in appearance, with the darting fire and
restlessness of the imaginative Oriental rather than the careless repose
of his philosophic contemporary. He is essentially a poet, though his
signature appears on all the bank notes of Uruguay, by virtue of some
official post he used to hold. He has also represented his country at
the Court of Spain, and been honoured in many ways by the nation which
is justly proud of his poetic achievement, for in _Tabaré_, his epic
of early Spanish life in Uruguay, he has produced one of the modern
Castillian classics. I found him a perfervid Shakespearean, also a keen
admirer of Carlyle, whose portrait holds the place of honour in his
study, although he confessed that it was a struggle to follow the sage
of Chelsea in the original, and he most frequently read him in French
translations. Neither of these eminent Uruguayans, by the way, though
owning indebtedness to our English literature, had acquired a speaking
knowledge of our language, French appealing to them, as it does to the
great majority of the educated Latin-Americans, more readily than English.
One thing that struck me not only in the literature of the country
and in the manifestations of its political thinkers, but in all the
evidences of its daily life, was how slightly indeed has the tremendous
modern development of the Argentine affected Uruguay. Just as the great
current of emigration passes its shores and does no more than dash a
little spray, in the form of a few stray emigrants, into Uruguay, so the
progress of the Argentine has affected hardly at all the life of Uruguay.
It is a distinct and highly individualised entity. Though essentially
Spanish in character, and originally part of the vice-royalty of Spain,
Uruguay had to secure its independence, not from the motherland, but
from Brazil, of which it was a province up to August 25, 1825. There
is much talk among Argentine statesmen of the chauvinist variety, of
annexing it to the greater republic, but geographically it is not meant
to be Argentine territory, the River Plate on the south and the Uruguay
on the west being natural boundaries, while the Brazilian frontier is
artificial. Less likely is it ever again to pass under the control of
Brazil, and it really serves a useful political purpose as something of a
buffer state between the two great republics of the Southern continent.
The most notable Argentine influence to be detected in Montevideo is the
passion for highly polished boots! I have often been amused to notice
workmen on their way from their tasks carefully dusting their boots
with their handkerchiefs to keep themselves “in the movement.” Like all
little countries, it is intensely proud of itself, tenacious of its
independence, and conscious of a certain superiority to both of its
great neighbours in the higher standard of intellectualism which it has
developed. Talk of Argentine annexation to an Uruguayan, and you will
speedily see that warrior spirit of which we have already heard a good
deal.
In the preceding chapter, certain distinctions between the social life
of the two republics have been mentioned, but not the prevalence of the
old Andalusian custom of love-making. This is one of the features of
Montevidean life that give a quaint touch to the street scenes, as every
evening the lovers may be observed standing on the pavement outside the
barred windows, talking to the girls within. This, I fancy, is similar
to the Mexican custom known as “playing bear,” and very strange it
looks to the wanderer from other shores. If a young man falls in love
with a Montevidean damsel, he must find some means of being introduced
to her father and gaining permission to pay court to his daughter, for
which purpose two nights of the week will be set apart, when he is at
liberty to visit her in the presence of her family, and this, mark
you, takes place before the lovers will have exchanged a spoken word.
The sweetheart is not supposed to meet the young lady at any other
time except on those appointed evenings, not even in the street is
he expected to stop and talk to her, and he can only take her to the
theatre duly chaperoned by a sister or other relative. The courtship,
too, is only permitted on the distinct understanding that the young man
intends to propose marriage to the young lady, anything approaching
the casual American courtships being rigorously ruled out. Then comes
the ceremony known as _el cambio de argollas_, or change of rings, to
which, much as we should invite a large wedding party, all the friends of
the sweethearts are bidden; presents are given, and the engaged couple
present each other with a ring. When the marriage time draws near, the
lover must himself make all arrangements for the house, endeavouring
to interpret as best he can the taste of his future wife, who takes no
part in these preliminaries, until another ceremonial occasion, known as
_la visita de vistas_, when, accompanied by some friends and her future
husband, she goes to see the home he has prepared for her. These customs,
chiefly of Spanish origin, are more observed in Uruguay than on the other
side of the River Plate, and help, among many others, to emphasise the
differences that exist between the two peoples.
It is well-known, of course, that Uruguayan credit in Europe has not
stood as high of recent years as the splendid possibilities of the
country ought to warrant, due to the fact that a great deal of the money
borrowed in the past for public improvements has found its way into the
wrong pockets, and also in some degree to the high-handed action of
President Batlle in regard to the affair of the Rambla Sud. In 1913, the
treasury had fallen so low that it was not able to pay all the Civil
Servants their salaries, but a new loan has just been floated at the
time these lines are being written, which will enable the Government to
pay its way for some time to come, and it is to be hoped that the spirit
of international friendship and co-operation which has worked to such
splendid issues in the Argentine, and is really part of the Colorado
policy in Uruguay, may so develop that this highly favoured little
country shall turn its attention in a more businesslike and earnest way
to the development of its great natural resources.
One of the curses of Uruguay is the prevalence of consumption, to combat
which an admirably managed association is in existence, and a great
annual collection is made on _el Dia de los Tuberculosos_, September
1st. The extraordinary energy with which this movement has been taken
up, the immense sums of money realised by the collections throughout the
Republic, and the admirable way in which the whole thing is organised by
the Uruguayan Anti-consumption League, were proofs to me of the genuine
spirit of public service that does exist in the country, and evidences of
what that spirit may yet achieve.