CHAPTER XXIII

ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE BRITISH IN THE NINETEENTH

CENTURY (1)

Great Britain as a Source of Capital-Some Ethics of Partnership-Rôles played by the British in the Development of South America-The nearest approach to a mining rush-The Nitrate Industry-Discovery and early vicissitudes of the Commodity-The Chilean Coalfields -Pioneers in Banking and Finance-Various British Communities in the Continent-Their Populations-Description of a Northern Burial Ground-Ecclesiastical and Educational Establishments-Some Irish Institutions—Father Fahy-Success of the Communities-The British in Uruguay-Some Curiosities in Castilian-British Missionary Enterprise-Captain Allen Gardiner-The South American Missionary Society-Fields of the Work-Mr. W. Barbrooke Grubb-His achievements among the Lengua Indians-The Rev. R. J. Hunt-Work of the Society in Southern Chile-The Dioceses of South AmericaSupport of various Chaplaincies-Schools and Institutions-An Extract from Hadfield-Mr. Morris' work in Buenos Aires-Its success.

I

T has been said by some that the great amount of capital which Great Britain began to pour into South America at the time of the War of Liberation, and which she has ceaselessly continued to provide from that day to this, had the effect of bringing into being that which was virtually a financial dominion over the Southern continent. But, regarded from the practical point of view, this alleged financial dominion has surely proved no more than an equitable expectation that the borrower should fulfil his half of the bargain toward the lenderan expectation that, allowing for the vicissitudes inseparable from humanity, has been amply fulfilled.

The more emotional of the South Americans-and they are not alone in this!-are not inclined to use a minor and muffled key in giving voice to such grievances as it may fall to their lot to bear. But never, I think, has any

responsible statesman out of any of the ten republics of the continent accused the British of having acted as usurers, or, indeed, in any other manner, but as partners in the development of their lands and industries. Robbed of all sentiment-and in this instance sentiment is undoubtedly present-the position may be put in a nutshell -that which has paid the one has paid the other. The finest political economist may seek for a thousand years in vain to improve on this very simple situation!

It is an obvious platitude to assert that in South America the British have interested themselves chiefly in those branches of industry in which they themselves were strongest. Broadly speaking, these were finance, urban and port enterprise, traffic, and agriculture, this last including the pastoral industry.

It was with finance that the South American field was first entered, for in the middle of the War of Liberation Great Britain-having in conjunction with the United States already supplied the insurgent forces with arms and munitions-made financial advances in the shape of war loans to several of the young and struggling states.

We have already seen how, at the victorious conclusion of the War of Liberation the British public, with more enthusiasm than judgment, rushed into a mining boom which ended disastrously for their pockets. Since that period the number of authentic mines which have been worked by British capital, from the North of the continent to the far South, is far too important to be dealt with here. A perusal of the stock and share lists of the various periods will reveal the condition of the successful ventures, and from time to time the gaps in these printed lists will reveal the casualties in the shape of failures.

Only on one occasion does South America appear to have been threatened with a mining rush of the kind that occurred in California, Australia, and the Klondyke. The spot that was on the eve of being invaded by untold thou

sands of mineral seekers was in a remote district of the great river system of Brazil.

About the middle of the nineteenth century there was a report of the existence of gold on the Upper Marañon. The rumor proved to be a false one, but it had the effect of attracting to the district a number of British and North American "diggers," some of them of as wild an order as any that ever graced a mining camp. When one or two of these, straying in aimless disappointment along the great rivers, came into collision with some of the least tractable of the Indians, sanguinary scenes were wont to ensue. The period of these disturbances, however, was short, for the newcomers, when once satisfied as to the absence of the rumored gold, made their visits as brief as possible.

The interest taken by the British in the nitrate industry of the Pacific Coast was at the least as relatively important as that shown in general mining, and the part played in this by Colonel North and his colleagues and successors is a matter of general knowledge.

Tradition has it that the first discovery of the nitrate which has brought so much wealth to Chile and England, was—like that of even greater forces-due to an accident. It is said that a woodcutter numed Negreros, having made a fire in the Pampa de Tamarugal, found to his amazement that the heated ground began to melt, and to run downhill like a stream! On examination, the soil was found to be nitrate of soda.

It is said too that the existence of nitrate was known in Europe as early as the middle of the eighteenth century. In 1820 a certain quantity was sent to England; but its reception there was decidedly a cold one; for, dismayed at the amount of duty demanded on it, its owners flung it overboard. In 1830 a consignment sent to Liverpool failed to find a buyer. However, after that the true value of the article began to be appreciated, for between

the years 1830 and 1850, 240,000 tons were exported. Mr. George Smith, it appears, was one of the first nitrate refiners, and one of the most enthusiastic supporters of this industry. In 1828 he undertook, in company with Mr. William Bollaert, a survey of the nitrate province of Tarapaca at the request of the Peruvian Government, and from this period his interest seems to have been unflagging.

It may be said that the Mr. Bollaert mentioned here proceeded in 1855 on the invitation of Messrs Cousiño and Garland to report on the now famous southern Chilean coal mines of Lota and Coronel, and his observations were afterwards read at the University of Chile.

The inauguration in the continent of British banking upon a modern basis was reserved, of course, for a somewhat later period. From their comparatively modest beginnings have now sprung such famous establishments as that of the London and River Plate Bank-which, founded, I believe, in 1863, stands as the pioneer-the London and Brazilian Bank, and others.

These, of course, have found as allies a number of financial houses of world-wide repute, the list of which, I suppose, may be headed by such firms as those of Rothschild and Baring. It is a matter of common knowledge how this latter house was involved in the Argentine financial crisis of 1890, when, as a result of the unwise policy of President Juarez Celman, Baring Brothers, the financial agents of the Argentine Government, were, through no fault of their own, forced into liquidation. The result showed that they were perfectly solvent, and in the end they emerged with flying colors from a difficult position.

It is now time to take a rapid general glimpse of the various British communities in South America. Needless to say, these were far more important in the temperate Southern half of the continent than in the tropical North. We have already seen that, very soon after its capture by the South Americans from the Spaniards, the

city of Valparaiso is reported to have had a British population of a thousand persons.

Since the full establishmbent of independence, however, the town which has held the greatest attraction for the British has always been Buenos Aires. By the middle of the nineteenth century it was computed that there were five thousand British residents in Buenos Aires, and the community already possessed a newspaper of its own, "The British Packet."

British immigrants, as a matter of fact, took very kindly to the towns at the edge of the southern alluvial plains, where, as one remarked, "there were five miles of washerwomen on the beach!" Very soon they began to establish their customs there. The original Foreigners' Club was founded in the Calle San Martin. Its first president was Mr. Thomas Duguid of Liverpool. There were also Reading and Commercial Rooms owned by the British. These were followed by the establishment of a cricket club and a racecourse.

The principal occupations to which the commercial portion of these British townsfolk applied itself were those of merchants, publicans, storekeepers, and boardinghouse proprietors, Irish domestic servants predominating. The British, moreover, owned many of the small farms in the neighborhood which supplied Buenos Aires with milk—an industry which has long since been taken over by the Basques.

In 1865 the British population of the Argentine Republic was calculated at 32,000. Of this number, however, no fewer than 28,000 were Irish-a number which represents an astonishingly large proportion to the whole! In 1870 the number of these British in the city and province of Buenos Aires alone had swollen to some 40,000, a total which the inhabitants of Argentina held out with some complacency against the eleven hundred and odd in Rio Janeiro and its neighborhood.

Elsewhere the various British communities were natur