To-day the British investments in South America probably amount to some seven hundred millions sterling. On the face of it, this situation might well seem not merely satisfactory, but triumphant. In many respects it justifies the first adjective; but the second, I think, could apply only if the rest of the world had remained impassive spectators of our industry as we piled up our interests and securities in the great Latin continent.

There is, moreover, another view of the question, which has so far been ventilated by our enemies rather than by ourselves, but which is by no means unworthy of attention. A boat may be rowed for seven hundred miles up a river to a point where the tiring oarsmen slacken and fail: then it will be of merely historic consolation to the inmates to reflect that, the farther upstream the craft has won its way, the more numerous are the down-river reaches along which it has to drift.

But this pessimistic metaphor is premature, certainly in this chapter, and probably in the world of affairs. It is essential in the first place to see by what means the British progress in South America has been achieved, from its earliest beginnings to the present day. We at once find ourselves confronted by a remarkable chain of events, every one of which illustrates the desultory nature of both our hostilities and friendly undertakings in South America. Almost all our achievements there have been the work of free lances. This has been so since the days of Elizabeth, who on the one hand gave Drake godspeed and scarfs embroidered with well-wishes, and on the other condoled with Philip of Spain on the deeds of her irrepressible sailors! The policy of James, feebly parodying the vigorous partnership of Elizabeth, gave a grim end to Raleigh. Later, many an honest sailor had to take his chance whether he were regarded by Spain as a lawful enemy, a dubious privateer, or a wholly damnable bucaneer. His mutable status depended on the course of the relations between England and Spain—a kaleido

scopic procession of sentiments concerning which he, afloat in the Southern oceans, could not be expected to keep himself posted. The dawn itself of the freedom of Spanish South America was heralded by a stroke of this same free-lance policy. For the successes and disasters of the British invasion of the Rio de la Plata in 1806which played so notable a part in instilling the idea of independence into the South American mind—were the result of an inspiration on the part of the British naval commander, Sir Home Popham, who found himself with some ships and troops to spare after the capture of Cape Town.

The War of Liberation itself affords a final instance of the consistently impassive official attitude toward South America. At that period the British Government, maintaining a correct neutrality, provided nothing beyond a benevolent sympathy. The British sailors and soldiers who enlisted in the patriot cause provided themselves; and such men as Cochrane, Guise, Miller, O'Brien, and some scores of others, found that their own Government's attitude toward them partook of the Nelsonian touch of refusing to observe what ought not to be seen!

It was only natural that the first trading relations of the British with the South Americans should have been of an individual nature. The commercial world was loosely knit in those days, and it was in the age when private initiative counted that the prospering British coached the South Americans from the status of pupils to that of colleagues.

England had well earned her considerable early advantages over her European and North American rivals. Her political and militant sympathies, her golden assistance, and the advent of a swarm of merchants conveying cargoes of merchandise-all this while the yellow and red of the Spanish standard was still floating over the last remnant of royal territory, the castles of Callao-had won for the British a place in the esteem of the South

Americans that no subsequent international vicissitudes have succeeded in destroying. It was in cordial circumstances that the British merchant introduced his machinery, his hard and soft ware, his live stock, and his liquids, and shipped home in their place hides, horns, metals, sugar, coffee, and the general produce of the Continent: for, since the sentiments of Brazil resembled those of the former Spanish colonies, it is with the entire continent that we are now concerned. It was surely one of the anomalies of statesmanship that gained for England the simultaneous gratitude of Brazil and the Spanishspeaking States. She had assisted the former in her step from a royal colony to a kingdom; she had aided the latter to divest themselves of royalty and its influence by becoming republics! The explanation is a simple one. These divergent processes had the same effect: that of throwing open the South American ports to the trade of the world.

As the intercourse between the British and the South Americans increased, other links beyond those of commerce began to be forged. It is the fashion to accuse the Englishman abroad of the unsocial crime of keeping himself to himself. This, I think, must apply in a far lesser degree to South America than to any other part of the world. There is no doubt that the average Englishman in South America entertains an affection for that continent and its inhabitants deeper than the inevitable regard with which the successful man contemplates the source of his wealth. Intermarriage has been frequent: common interests in sports, games, pastoral, and agricultural occupations have led to an intimate understanding.

Thus we arrive at the general relations of the present day. Without an over-indulgence in complacency, they may be said to be very satisfactory. The average Englishman is aware that he does not sound the temperamental depths of the average South American; on the

other hand, the average South American has a much shrewder conception of the Englishman than the latter suspects. It is true that for generations the man of Iberian stock took some pleasure in referring to the Northerner as the loco Inglez-the mad Englishman. But the adjective, emitted in jocular resignation, was devoid of sting; for at all times the Iberian considered the other an honest loco, and now for more than a generation he has joined him in his madness-in almost all its forms, from hygiene and social clubs to the cult of balls! Moreover, is not the word of an Englishman-Palabra de un Inglez! —an oath in itself? Is not the expression Hora Inglessa an appeal to punctuality?

And still regarding the situation from the point of view of the South American-he has been able to judge of the Englishman as an enemy; no mean test of a man's worth. When Whitelock's ill-fated expedition left the shores of the river Plate, the Government of the invaded territories had already bcome national rather than viceregal. It was as South Americans that the city fathers of Montevideo offered that generous tribute to the departing British troops, an address that acknowledged with spontaneous warmth the chivalry of the army of occupation, and that went the length of expressing regret for its departure! A fine testimonial this-one which would not have been applied, say, to the Prussian Alfinger, who, assisting in the sixteen-century Welser colonization of the Continent, made a practice, when on the march, of cutting off the heads of dying members of the Indian slave-gangs, whose necks were chained to a common steel rod, and by this practical method prevented any sentimental delay in the progress of the party!

This Alfinger of unsavory memory, dragged in here somewhat by his grim and ghastly heels, opens up in a not inappropriate fashion one of the main objects of this chapter-the question of the respective relations with the South Americans of ourselves, and of our keenest com

petitors, the Germans. Let us start in a key that is justifiably buoyant! As regards mere popularity, it seems to me that we have little to fear. The piece of eight played its part in the temporary lease of part of Venezuela to the Prussian Welsers, and it is very little beyond a common interest in the dollar which is responsible for the association of South American and German to-day. An inherent and unquenchable antagonism exists between the arrogance of the Prussian and the easy democracy of the South American. One very clear proof of this exists. In largely increasing numbers the South American has taken to visiting Paris and Cannes, London and Eastbourne, Switzerland, Norway, and Egypt; but -for his own pleasure-never Berlin! The lists of Eton and other schools now include a number of South Americans-but to what German school does any South American boy go for the building up of his character and tone! Those who have visited Teutonic technical colleges have done so for technical purposes.

Surely, since every straw counts, we may even take some pride in having induced the South American to follow our lead in such matters as clothes, games, and household arrangements. I have had the honor of dining en petit comité with the late President of Argentina -an old member of the Devonshire Club-when the service was carried out by maidservants in English caps and aprons. Now is not this in its way as high a compliment as any other?

The volatile Iberian-as sturdy in his own way as any other race of the earth-has, we flatter ourselves, a stanch belief in the good faith of the British. On this head we have every right to sound a trumpet blast or two, for in this case the proof of the pudding has been our willingness to respect its plums! The Iberian is nothing if not a student of history, and he remembers. What of Madeira? Have we not twice occupied, and voluntarily restored that tempting, pleasant, and strategically