OUR LITERARY CORNER.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 13597, 4 December 1909, Page 7

OUR LITERARY CORNER.

THE ATLANTIC COAST OF SOUTH AMERICA.

(Bi Professor J. Macuillan Brown.)

KVHV THE ATLANTIC COAST WAS , FILL TO FILL AND WHY BRAZIL IS PORTUGUESE.

For the last fortnight I have coasted this great continent from Pornambuco to Buenos Ayres. and watched the new lif. that is throbbing in its vein_. From its proximity to Europe one would hove fancied that the <-ast c*ast would b_ the first to attra-t the energy or Christendom; and from its easy approaches. Us iae* 'harbours, and its great rivei_, (it, yeuld have Wen tlie first to be* Europeanised. But it has been the last, md the r«i_ons for this are historical xati-er th-ii natural. The misty idea of a lest AUantis, probably suggested by the perilous drift of some ancient sailor away to the ■ vest of the Canaries, haunted the Greek mind in a dreamy way, and then dropped out of European consciousness. Commerce looked rather to the east than to the west. Only when the Turks troke the lines of contact cid, the energy of merchants and sailors reach cut westwards. Tho inspiration passed from Greece to Italy, and at last from Italy to Spain and Portugal; and the Portuguese sailors, as being furthest rest stretched away down th_ coast 'of Africa till they doubled the Cape .nd got. to the east by a new sea route. The Spaniards from their .port upon the Atlantic, Cadiz, struck out for a route of their own. end were intercepted by " America. It was insular America that ' Columbus first landed on, and the Spaniards pushed on through the Caribbean Sea till they hit on tho narrow isthmus that had been raised in later geological times to separate the two great oceans. It was years, if not generations, before they abandoned the idea that there was a short strait between the two in the latitudes oi the tropics. Their whole attention was riveted for years on the Pacific coast. And when they found that there were gold and silver there the passion of *dventurers from a land that was barren and hungry for - these precious metals became uncontrollable, and bore them along the Andes in a frenzy of daring and cruelty to deeds of discovery and conquest that • fill our mo6t fascinating pages of ro--v nance. It was the passion for gold that led them first to make for tho eastern coast. When Gonzalo Pizarro was established in Quilto as Governor, the dream of El Dorado fired his imagination, and in 1510 he set "out down the J.Bpo, one of the tributaries of the Amazon, with 350 Spaniards and 4000 Indians, to find the Golden City. It is one of the most daring expeditions in . ,t_e "records of discovery, and not till recent times have more than half-a-dozen followed in his footsteps. He had to" turn brck, but his emissary, Ore Nana, in the ship they had built on the great river, abandoned his leader and sailed down to Para and thence across the Atlantic to Spain. His • perfidy -waa unknown, and ho was appointed by the King to return and annex .Brazil. He died on the voyage and his expedition failed. Had he lived, the whole of South .America would havo been Spanish. The -Portuguese diverged from their southIrard course along the African coast and found; the broad nose of SoutTi America that it shoots out into the Atlantic from the neighbourhood of Pernarnbueo. In 1593 Pope Alexander the Sixth thought he diyided the new lands fairly between the two nations, **, when he gave the Portuguese possesv >»on of this nose. Next year the Treaty \_f Tordesi Nas gave them twenty times -_a_ much by drawing the boundary "•■afrom south of Santos and Rio north _;t. the mouth of the Amazon. But "there was nobody to claim or assist ' -i, claim to the region intervening between ~"r& thia and the foot of the Andes, and tne have pushed and pushed .^j-westwards till Brazil covers one fifth , £?y_f tho whole American Continent, and w ftitnds the third State of the -world in _*£_■_». ' v $* THE RICHES OF BRAZIL. -Tj '^ n< * " perhaps the richest in proV«W_s, both mineral and vegetable. As _.■*£,■• ' fc ha* been, surveyed it has Utile %*j**. * ut ** ias great areas of all the <?_m metals; and for a time it was *fm chief diamond producer of tue *•_**s_ It is its vegetable products that in evidence. In fact there is nothing that it cannot grow,-so is its soil and so varied are its clinot merely on account of its -_ ft-P*** stretch across the latitudes, but * Xoecause it rises in.plateaux from the £ coast. It ia rarely that one approaches <f it without seeing considerable ranges of . v mountains cloee to the" sea. These r eastern ranges of Brazil are far older *st_an the Andes, and have in a former period seen seas all round where now the great rivers flow. „ t « v the region of the rivers that has .-.uotaited the idea that the country is tail fat and covered with impenetrable yam. And even there the extraordm**y ttcrease in th© value of rubber on -MjWt of cables, bicycles, motor cars, »jH _mtion. has mado it the realisa«°a «f the dream of El Dorado. For-"JM-J-unters have raised great, rubber*"■•■on the Amazon, Para, near the *£2 a # ' anaos half way up, and IquiI 2? far j|P towards th© Andes. TwowoniHrton steamers trade regularly *P to the. latter port, and shallow «f»_g_t steamers find their way for wWWnds of miles up the tributaries. 1 ?•"* hare taken this way into"Pgni. ™«it been possible to get easy and SF** transit from the portage on the w»3»h to the neighbourng terminus « f the Oroya line from Lima, l_.it ***-_ is too impecunious to carry out wis long-projected route to Europe oy •to* extension of this railway. LUXURY AND GAMBLING, it w, however, the coastal belt, and •P-eially the south that constitutes the •j*ual and future riches of Brazil. ior *W« Europeans can settle with some l»_.pect of permanently occupying the r se °* n * r y* 0«- bas only to see the great v -if.and prosperous cities that have grown i'-o? in every available bay to realise how much has been done. And one has «ny to travel along the road in a ftoyal Mail Packet boat like the Astur- *■» to sue what wealth there is. '-.nis Sreat and luxurious floating hotel seemed to empty at every port; but it filled «P again, in spite' of its being -the MM-: season. And there is little doubt •boat it the Brazilians and Argentines Cemand luxury. It is nearly threequarters of a century since this, the p-Oneer company, started running from Jau*opp to America; and the number of «»es it has had to adapt itself to this S. owing passion of the South Americans » proof enougb of the increase of jpros-J*-rty and luxury on the Continent. It is easy to see how self-indulgent they to They lie in their berths till well On xn the forenoon, and one can soon ' __o_.ll how the men indulge in smoking •» they lie. There was none of the vigor- -_*- walking on the decks that was _o narked a feature of the voyage from . Au-tralia to England. Both men and 5 _ft_mn sit all day and night in vie

ORIGINAL AND SELECTED MATTER.

NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

I smoking rooms or the social hall and play ! for money. The gambling instinct is as pronounced as the passion for lusuiy. In the citie<s. expecially in Rio and Bnenos Ayres. the two thrust, themselves under the eyes at every - tcp: tho easiest commodity to buy is a lottery ticket, and the next ea.iost are cigarettes and wines. It is the same in the parent countries. Portugal and Spain. But thero proverty sets limits to the luxury and makes beggary the most potent feature of the civilisation. Here ! there are few or no beggars as yet; and ; this is all the more striking that prices a.-"* so high. Everything is twice, and ! often three times as dear as it is in , England. Nearly every article of food, |as well as of luxury, is imported, in j spite of the huge tariff. On the San j Paulo railway I paid one and ninepence ! for a bottle of lemonade, and here in j the Plaza Hotel in Buenos Ayres, the cheapest room one can have i.s twentyfive shillings a day; of course a considerable percentage of this is due to tbe marble columns and staircases, and wide area of gilt and embroidery; but a pound is considered a moderate price in c. en a second rate hotel. A paper dolla- (Is 8d) does not go much further than a sixpence in New Zealand. IMMIGRATION. Of course there i.s overflowing prosperity to make such a state of affairs endurable. It is the crowds of immigiants and the pushing of cultivation into vast new areas that are making the wealth and hiding the possibility oi poverty. There is a great movement beginning from Spain; more Spaniards camo to South America last year than Italians. About two millions have come from Italy to the Argentine, and almost as many reached Brazil, whilst only about 800,000 have come to Argentine from Spain, and still less to Brazil. But last year the proportion was reversed; thirty per cent, more Spaniards than Italians came to South America. Tho causes at work in the peninsula are growing poverty, increase of education amongst the working classes, and t'he pressure of conscription. Workers are more anymore needed on this eastern coast; and for men from such poverty-stricken countries as Spain and the "South of Italy, the wages are high, and with their frugal style of living there is much to be saved out of them; and then there is the chance of their rising into the ranks of the new wealth, a real satisfaction of the passion of gambling. THE INFLUX OF CAPITAL. But the most important source of this overflow of prosperity is the influx of capital from Europe. Hitherto it has been chiefly from England, which has invested some 350 millions in the Argentine alone. Now France and Germany are pushing in with their capital and seeking investments in these new lands. The United States, too, has begun to realise what a vast field for enterprise and employment of capital there is in the south. On the Asturias there was a considerable contingent of American business men and agents, making chiefly for Buenosi Ayres. And I see that some American financiers, amongst them Pierpont Morgan, are about to establish a bank down here, and have made a deal in cattle ranches with _he view of establishing a freezing factory. The great Pan-American Congresses (there is one to be held ne_tt year in Buenos Ayres) are not all meant for mere political purposes. But I have heard it said that the Brazilian and Argentine incline to fight shy of Yankee wooing. Tliat will not prevent them, however, seekingand accepting loans from New York. The States and municipalities have almost exhausted the patience of the European money markets by their barefaced defaulting; there is, perhar*s, a further chance for operating in " the United States. . THE CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE. * "What is going to obstruct the development of South America in the future is not the lack of natural riches or the failure of the stream of immigration, but the character of the races that inhabit it and guide its destinies. WTiat stopped its development in tbe past, at least on the Atlantic side, was the unhygienic state of its portsi and the revolutionary character of its politics. Yellow fever, though it never reached Monte Video and Buenos Ayres as a permanency, warned off the European millions from'the whole of South America. And the narrow, mean-look-ing streets of tibese great cities are the natural breeding ground of such epidemics. It is the consciousness of this that is urging the municipalities to run wide avenues right through the midst of their cities and to encourage British enterprise and capital in bringing them pure water and introducing good drainage. Santos and Rio de Janeiro are two splendid instances of what this has done to remove a plague and an evil reputation; they are now free from yellow fever and many other old epidemics. Northern Brazil, and especially Bahia, still retains its evil name; though the site of that seaport is most picturesque and attractive, we passengers refrained from paying a visit to the shore because of the tales of visitors who never returned to their ship again. We all went on shore at Santos, that old plague-spot, where ships used to rot for want of crews, and we enjoyed our journey up the San Paulo railway, which climbs a steep mountain range for miles through tunnel and across viaduct, amid the most picturesque and tropical.scenery. The dwellers in the Argentine, as well as those in the South of Brazil, speak with (enthusiasm of the climate.. And these spring days of late August in Buenos Ayres are crisp and sunny, filling one with exhilaration and tho desire to be in the open air.

But the climate has not changed the character of the Latin peoples who are colonising these lands. There was great hope amongst European reformers of the beginning of the nineteenth century that, with their independence, these South American Republics would advance to a true appreciation of liberty. But even Boliver, who spent his great fortune and his life in freeing his countrymen, lost all hope before he died. Scarcely a year has passed without a revolution or a frontier war. There is a lack of balance in the people that prevents them accepting the decisions of tha Legislative Chambers and the ballot-box. Their Constitutions and laws are admirable on paper; in action they are ignored. I have heard on all sides despair of ju«rtice ■expressed; even the jurymen have each their price. This lessons litigation except amongst those with c long ,jrurse. But it also makes revolution the only method of politics; the professional politicians who are out spend their whole time in intriguing with tho soldiers and those who have weapons to get in; and how to manipulate the ballot-box is the prime question with the party in power. And politics in South America cover but a small area of the people; there are so few educated enough to read the papers and understand the iss\ies. In. Brazil it is hopeless, for 80 per cent, can neither read nor write. In Argentine there is a better chance; for half the population, thanks to the large sprinkling of Teutons in the temperate zone, can follow the political discussions with intelligence in their newspapers, and there is no mass of undeveloped negro end Indian to reckon with. As long as it can avoid war with its neigh-

hours, and this the enormous quantity ol European capital invested in the country will do its best to secure, the army will be small and the influence of the military element insignificant. The Presidents in Brazil as well as in Argentine are now always civilians, generally lawyers or journalists. And in the approaching elections in both States military candidates are conspicuous by their absence. Yet there was a revolution and much shooting here in 1904; it was abortive and brief -. but it shows that the revolutionary methods of politics have not been wholly abandoned . THE POLITICS HOPELESS. And one has only to travel with the Latin peoples of these Republics to see what a fine sphere such methods have. They have little or none of tho selfcontrol that wealth and education ought to give. The smallest incident will rouse them to frenzy, hostile or friendly. I n the Customs-house examination of luggage it is easy to distinguish the Teuton and Anglo-Saxon from the man of Latin descent; coolness, almost stolidity, marks the one, and excitability tho other. And this will always maim the politics of South America. There is too small a Teutonic immigration to affect the final result And yet there is some hope that teutonic, capital may introduce Teutonic ways. Unfortunately, labour is rapidly tending to have more to say in politics than capital, as in all civifised Western communities; strikes are growing more frequent, in spite of the prosperity. And labour all through South America is in the main from Latin countries. One singular phenomenon I notice from the Spanish papers has be- | gun to appear in the Argentine. From one or two provincial centres there come reports of suffragist meetings; the women are demanding the vote; and their lethargic temperament might introduce some ballast into political lite; but the hope is small; for they are generally under the thumb of the ut '■ and do what {t bids ; as in the Latin countries, you rarely see men enter the churches; their clientele is feminine. And it is shrewdly suspected among politicians that the Church is at the bottom of most of the revolutions.