THROUGH FIVE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA,
C ITRRENT LITERATURE.
Through Five Republics of South America. By Percy F. Martin. (W. Heinemann. 215. net.) — This "critical description of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and Venezuela" is crowded with facts. So numerous are they that the reader is bewildered. If only Mr. Martin had "boiled down" these four hundred and sixty-five closely printed pages, and set forth plainly his con- clusions, it would have been better. As it is, we do not quite know what he means. On p. 353, in writing about Chile, he tells us that by King Edward VIL's award in the dispute between that country and Argentina "peace was not only maintained, but has probably been established for all
time." But in his introduction he pours scorn on the system of arbitration, and tells UB that the States which sold their navies in view of the durable peace they had secured are now going to build them again. He is moderately hopeful about the future of the Republics, especially Chile and Argentina ; but he has a great deal to find fault with in the present. They have great natural capabilities ; but then corruption goes on unchecked. He has much to tell us about the material condition of the Re- publics,—the railways, the banks, the agriculture, the population, and the revenues, this last a subject in which British capital is more interested than it probably now wishes to be. We notice, by the way, a very curious time-link. The Vizconde de Barbaceiaa, who was sent over by the Brazilian Prime Minister of the day to confer with Mr. Canning, is still alive,—in his hundred and fourth year.
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