BOOKS.
SOUTH OF PANAMA.*
Tun graphic account which Lord Bryce published in 1912 of his travels in South America does not purport to be a political disquisition on the present conditions and future prospects of the South American Republics. Nevertheless, an observant statesman of Lord Bryce's calibre could not visit a country which teems with political problems of the highest interest and importance without forming opinions and offering some conjectures as to the manner in which they admitted of solution. Lord Bryce, like most liberally minded politicians, is an optimist. Without attempting to ignore the defects of South American institutions, or to deny that the name Republic is often used to veil methods of government which depart widely from Republican ideals, he none the less takes, on the whole, a hopeful view of the future of South American democracy. "Pessimism," he truly says, "is easier than optimism, as it is easier to destroy than to construct." It is as well that the other side of the question should be known and studied. It has now been presented to the world by Professor Edward Ross, of the Wis- consin University, in a work of great interest and of high literary merit. Professor Ross throws diplomatic reticence and discretion to the winds. He knows that "it is the traditional policy of the United States to cultivate the friendship of the South Americans," but he adds : "I have done nothing of the . sort. My first obligation is not to National Policy but to • soaa of Panama. By Edward Alsworth Bees, Ph.D., LL.D. London: George Allen and tinwin. 110s. &I. net4
Truth." It must be admitted that the truth, as expounded by Professor Ross, is not generally complimentary to the inhabitants or to the institutions of South America, but it has to be borne In mind that many of the most unfavourable conclusions at which he arrives are based on his experiences in Ecuador and
Colombia—countries which were not visited by Lord Bryce. ." Light and freedom," he says, "wax as you go South from Panama."
A single example will suffice to show how two competent political observers, with much the same facts before them, may arrive at opposite conclusions. Lord Bryce witnessed an election at Santiago. He commends the manner in which the proceedings were conducted, and he even says that the system of Propor- tional Representation adopted in Chile is well worthy of study by political students in other countries. Professor Ross, on the other hand, contends that the Chilean electoral methods, though superior to those adopted in Ecuador, where the success of the Government candidate is secured by the rough but effective method of employing troops to drive hostile voters away from the polling-booths, is still open to great animadversion. The inquilinos (labourers) used all, as a matter of course, to vote as their masters directed. Now, however, it appears that many of them expect to be paid, and that a contested election costs the candidate from three to ten thousand dollars, which have to be spent on bribes. Our past electoral history debars us from indulging in too severe a condemnation on proceedings of this nature. For instance, Sir George Trevelyan relates in his Life of Charles Fox that, at an inquiry into the Shoreham election of 1764, a witness stated that all the members of the local club "would vote for the candidate who would give them most money," and that one of them, by way of emphasi7Ing their resolve to do so, added : "Yes, damn him, if he was a Frenchman."
It was a somewhat unfortunate accident that the chance suggestion thrown out by a German Professor (Waldseemfiller) led to the name of the Florentine, Americus Vespuccius, being given to the whole of the Western World. The nomenclature has tended to engender the idea that some sort of special affinity exists between the Northern and Southern Continents. As a matter of fact, the very reverse is the case. Not only are the inhabitants of North and South America severed in a very marked degree by all the racial, religious, and other points of dissimilarity which exist between divers countries of the Old World, but the conditions under which the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Spaniards and Englishmen engaged in the original work of conquest differed so widely as to leave an • abiding mark on the subsequent history of the two constituents. Moreover, those conditions, whilst they were singularly adapted for the display of the most vigorous characteristics of the Northern, served rather to enhance the defects of the Southern race. The wealth of North America was mainly agricultural, that of South America mineral. The natives in the former case were warlike and unaccustomed to labour. The Englishmen either exterminated them or drove them back into the recesses of their primeval forests. The English were thus driven to work with their own hands, and in doing so they developed all those qualities of energy and resourcefulness which are the natural consequences of self-exertion. The aborigines of the Southern Continent were relatively docile and were inured to labour. The Spaniards enslaved them, and in doing so undermined their own national character. They ignored the dignity of labour, and thus encouraged the growth of that "dry-rot of indolence" which, Professor Ross maintains, is still the abiding curse of some of the South American Republics. The objects and methods of the two races also diverged widely. The English colonized. The Spaniards exploited. The occasional identity of political interests has not served to overcome the Innate repulsion between the two races. To this day, an Anglo- Saxon in South America is dubbed with the title, intended to be uncomplimentary, of " Gringo " ; whilst in North America an Italian, Spaniard, or Portuguese is called by the no more flattering name of a " Dago."
Professor Ross states, and emphasizes his statement by the use of italics, that "the momentous basic fact" of South American life is that, "from the Rio Grande down the West Coast to Cape Hem, free agricultural labour as we know it does not exist." Along the East Coast the case is different. During the dictatorship of Roses (1835-52), the Argentine labourers "shook off the last fetters of feudalism." But Argentina must be excepted from all South American generalizations. It stands by itself. It is "a land of hope, where life is on the up curve, not for traders and planters alone—men with capital—but for the wage-earners as well." The working classes are not, as elsewhere, ill-clad, ill-fed, and down-trodden. Immigration is encouraged, and is conducted on highly intelligent lines. Educa- tion is being rapidly developed. Public libraries have been established. Lord Bryce calls Argentina "the United States of the Southern Hemisphere."
The picture given by Professor Ross of the condition of the labouring classes on the West Coast is gloomy in the extreme neither is there any reason for supposing that it is exaggerate& At Quito "slavery and ill-treatment have sunk the native population into the depths of degradation and hopelessness." Throughout Ecuador, the peons are in a state of "virtual slavery." The status of the agricultural labourers is at its nadir in Colombia. "The peon is virtually a serf, bound to work all his life for a nominal wage." A Bolivian local newspaper. described "the moral, intellectual, and material condition of the Indians" as "the worst possible " ; but the Aymara, being a more virile and warlike race than most other tribes, appear to be awakening to the necessity of effort on their own behalf. Conflicts have taken place, and the Bolivians are said to be living "in the crater of a slumbering volcano." In the mean- while, the President issues orders to his subordinates to enforce the laws designed for the protection of Indians, but they are neglected.
In Peru, matters are slightly better, but still very bad. A Native-Rights Association has been formed at Lima, but its influence is not widely extended. A Committee of the HOUND of Commons reported in June, 1913, that "the Putumayo case is but a shockingly bad instance of conditions of treatment that are liable to be found over a wide area in South America." The failure to check barbarous proceedings of this sort is due, Pro- fessor Ross thinks, not to any want of zeal on the part of the Government at Lima, but to the fact that the Judges and Prefects who are sent to inquire into them always fall victims to the pressure and to the bribery of those who are interested . in preventing any check being placed on the abuses of the system under which rubber is collected. Indians are entrapped into signing contracts, often when drunk, without having the least idea that in doing so they become liable to be sent a hundred miles away to toil in a freezing mine-gallery or a hot cane-field, whore they will be practically slaves without the possibility of obtaining any legal protection from the ill- treatment and exactions of their employers.
It cannot be said that there is as yet any "Indian question 11- in South America. The Indians are numerous. They are believed, exclusive of half-breeds, to number some eight millions. They are a highly prolific race, but owing to drink, disease, and unsanitary conditions the mortality amongst them is appalling. At Bogota, it is stated, eighty per cent. of the children die before they attain the age of two years. Save in a few rare and excep- tional instances, the Indians are too timid and ignorant to do anything to assert their own rights. Even in advanced Argentina the peons are "unbelievably stupid." One-handled ploughs have been introduced because they could not be taught to manipulate ploughs with two handles. Little or nothing is done to apply a remedy to their ignorance. In the more backward Republics, the Indians are no more educated, and perhaps even less educated, than they wore in the days of the Incas. Yet it is clear that, without either a revolution or very drastic change, a great deal might be done to improve the lot of the Indian serfs, not only without injuring, but even with the result of bettering the position of, the employers. In Ecuador, "one planter wiped out all debts due to him from peons, with the result that his peons worked for him six days a week instead of four, and, having cash to look forward to, they worked better." But any concessions of this nature are generally condemned by South American public opinion. In Chile, which is far more advanced than some of the more northern Republics, the proprietors were scandalized because an American "provided his four hundred inquilinos with tables, benches, and great tubs of beans from which each could help himself." It is satisfactory that Professor Ross is able to add : "He finally had the best inquilinos in the district." It is greatly to be hoped that the Peruvians, Chileans, and others will eventually learn the lesson which is taught by the experience of all the world—namely, that free labour is not only more humane, but also more remunerative, than serfdom. But it will probably be long before this lesson is learnt. In Chile, the state of education of many of the
upper classes would appear to be very backward. A Chilean lady asked a woman Protestant missionary "if the mis- sionaries were not in league with the Rothschikls to buy souls for Satan."
The treatment of the pure Indians is not the only, nor, indeed, is it, politically speaking, the most important, problem that awaits solution at the hands of future generations in South America. Argentina is a "white man's country." So also, even to a greater extent, is Uruguay. Although Lord Bryce very rightly indicates that the existence of the Magyars of Hungary, the Finns of Finland, and the Basques of the Western Pyrenees constitutes a convincing proof of the fallacy of sup- posing that the Indo-Europeans are naturally and invariably superior to all the so-called non-Aryan races, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that real progress in South America stands In direct proportion to the prevalence of untainted white blood. Outside Argentina and Uruguay, the mestizo element generally predominates, having been fostered by the relatively slight repugnance to intermarriage between the white and coloured races which distinguishes the Southern Latins from the Northern Teutons. "The future of tropical South America," Professor Ross says, "turns on the value of mixed blood." The "wisest sociologist in Bolivia" assured him that "the failure of the South American Republics has been due to mestizo domination," and that the only hope for the future lay in a large white immi- gration. A German educational authority, after an experience of four years, came to the conclusion that "the crossing of races has produced a chaotic, unstable, nervous organization, resulting in a type at war with itself." The Germans, of whom a large number are settled in South America, appear generally to be of opinion that by discipline alone can the national character of the South Americans be improved and strengthened. The view is typical of modern German thought ; but it is earnestly to be hoped, in the interests both of the South Americans themselves and of the rest of the civilized world, that neither pure-blooded Spaniards, mestizos, nor Indians are destined to be subjected to the ruthless and demoralizing influence of Teutonic Kultur. In default of this drastic and disastrous remedy, time can alone provide a solution. It would be in the highest degree presumptuous oven for the best- informed political prophet to venture on any confident prediction as to what the nature of that solution will be.
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