VENEZUELA.*
THIS is a pleasant and readable account of the Republic of Venezuela, written by an American from personal knowledge. The old tag of every prospect pleasing and only man being vile is one which rises naturally to the mind when one reads this drama of muddle and revolution played by a lazy, ignorant, and effete population in the finest of climates and on
• Ireseruela a Land where it is always Summer. By W. nleroy Curtis. With a Map. London: °mood, Malleable. and Co. 1996.
a stage which Nature has adorned with scenes of almost incredible beauty and splendour. Vile is, however, too strong a word. The Spanish - Americans, the half - caste negroes, the half - caste Indians, and the Zambos (men part negro and part Indian) are not so much vile as lazy, indifferent, and childish. A poor, proud, pleasure-loving, and yet essentially a " muddling " people, they endure or destroy their plundering and precarious Governments with a strange mixture of indifference and fanaticism. They will for years worship an arbitrary dictator with almost slavish adoration. Then suddenly comes a change of feeling, the dictator is dismissed, and his statues, with their grandiloquent inscrip- tions, are hurled from their pedestals. Nominally the country is a Republic, but anything less truly Republican or democratic than the institutions as they exist, not on paper, but in practice, it is difficult to conceive. In the first place, there is always some one living in a palace in a rough-and-ready, yet still more or less kingly, state, whose word is above the law as long as he re- mains in the palace, and until a revolutionary war has upset him. Of course there are Chambers, but they count for very little. So much for the Government. The fabric of society is equally unlike what would be expected in a Republic.
There is an upper class formed of rich men, mostly white or half-white, and below them is a great mass of negroes and Indians who never dream of challenging the rich men's right to reverence and consideration. The strange comedy of blood and fireworks, laughter and pomposity, which the Venezuelans, like the rest of the Spanish-Americans, call government, is, as we have said, played with the most beautiful surroundings that the imagination of man can conceive. Directly the coast-line is left, and the mountains come so near that it is but a narrow slip, the climate is one that can only be described as perpetual spring. The altitude gives the charm of mountain air, the situation within the tropics produces almost perpetual sunshine, while the presence of abundant streams of water and of an extraordinarily rich soil—in some places a rod
sixty feet long has been driven into the deep, black alluvial soil of the valleys without touching bottom—
makes the flora exceptionally rich and varied. Anything will grow at all times of the year if you only take the trouble to water it. Add to this climate and this fertility that Venezuela within what are clearly her boundaries has abundance of gold and other minerals, and that her forests are extraordinarily valuable, and it seems almost incredible that a country which has so long been settled has advanced so little in the path of progress. Lord Melbourne said that one had only to listen to Brougham's speeches and note their transcendent ability to realise " how many and how great must be the reasons which prevented any Government availing themselves of such talents." One has only to consider the natural resources of Venezuela to realise what must be the state and condition of a people who have contrived to make nothing of them.
One of the chief facts that seems to have struck Mr. Curtis was that no new enterprise is ever undertaken at Caracas or elsewhere except by Americans, Englishmen, and Germans.
The native will not even speculate. He never buys the stock of a new company, but waits to see if it succeeds. If it does he invests. That is a good rule for maiden ladies, but a country could never be developed if all its capitalists acted on those lines. Among the beat things in the present volume are the descriptions cf social life in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, the sketches of the various political leaders, Guzman Blanco, Dr. Rojas, and President Crespo, and the notice of the curious throwing off of the Papal allegiance by General Guzman Blanco. The full story of this act, however, is not given, and it is difficult to make out exactly how things stand at the present moment. The follow- ing account of the way in which the blacks are treated in Venezuela is very interesting :—
" While the colour line is not entirely obliterated in Venezuela society, it is not so strictly drawn as in the United States, and the feat that a man has negro blood in his veins does not debar him from either social, professional, or political honours. General Joaquin Crespo, presid'nt of the republic, and his wife are of mixed Spanish and Indian blood, and she is a very intelligent and estimable woman by-the-way. And the amalgamation of races is not unusual among the lower classes. It is a common thing to see a white woman with an octoroon, or even a mulatto, for a husband, and even more common to see a white husband with a tinted Venus for a wife. At public balls, at the hotels, and other
places of resort, in political, commercial, and social gatherings, the three races—Spanish, Indian, and Negro—and the mixed bloods, mingle without distinction. It is an ordinary sight to find black and white faces side by side at the dining-tables of the hotels and restaurants, and in the schools and colleges the colour of a child makes no difference in his standing or treatment. Some of the most accomplished scholars in the country, some of the most eminent lawyers and jurists, are of negro blood ; and in the clergy no race distinction is recognised. I have seen a coloured theological student—and one can always be detected by the long, black frock and shovel-hat he wears— walking arm in arm with a white comrade, and in the assignment of pri• sts among the parishes the bishop never thinks of race prejudi e. The present bishop is reputed to have both Indian and negro blood in his veins. A Sunday morning I dropped in upon a congregation of worshippers in one of the fashionable churches, and found a negro priest singing mass. I could not distinguish a single coloured person in the congregation, and all the attending acolytes were white. Some of the wealthiest planters in the country are full-blooded negroes, but they are not often found in trade. This is probably because most of the merchants are foreigners. The natives are commonly engaged in agrLulture and the professions."
At first the British reader will be inclined to think they manage these things better in Caracas or La Guayra than in Baltimore or New Orleans. He should remember, however, to look at the different results obtained by the population which has maintained its horror of mixing the races, and so has been driven into holding aloof from the negroes. The Americans may fairly argue, " We are what we are, and not what the Spanish-Americans are, in no small measure because we have refused to treat the negro as an equal, and to regard the mixture of blood as involving no stain."
Of course, Mr. Curtis touches on the boundary dispute, but not from a very instructive point of view. He assumes as beyond question that every one living in the disputed territory, Indian, negro, Spaniard, and Anglo-Saxon, would prefer English to Venezuelan rule ; but he also assumes that England is, as usual, grabbing what is not hers. That we have any right to the territory we claim does not appear to him conceivable. No doubt he is quite sincere. He is probably under the delusion that everything for which we cannot show uninterrupted possession since 1800 or so must belong to Venezuela as a sort of residuary legatee. That is, in effect, the Bull of Alexander VI. agreement. Mr. Curtis should remember, how- ever, that neither we nor the United States can admit its validity. The notion that to the heirs of Spain belong every inch of the continent not actually occupied by some other Power is ridiculous. Here is a portion of Mr. Curtis's views in regard to the boundary question :- " We frame laws, organise police, and establish courts to defend the weak against the strong, and protect property from being un- lawfully plundered, and no honest or brave man will stand idly by while highway robbery is being committed upon his neigh- bJur. The excuse for the interference of our government in the Samoan case was trifling compared with the reasons that exist in the seizure of Venezuelan territory by England, for beyond and outside the grounds of ordinary justice, which are sufficient, there are some selfish inducements that appeal to every business mm in this country, if he would stop for a moment to study the facts and the situation. The United States should prevent the seizure of the Guiana territory and the waters of the Orinoco for the very reason that England has seized them. The same applies to France, Germany, and other commercial nations, for if they do not protect Venezuela now they will be compelled to pay tribute to England hereafter.
The notion of our levying tribute is too grotesque. Can Mr. Curtis name any Colony whose trade is not as open to the rest of the world as to England
Previous page
