THE PRINCE IN SOUTH AMERICA.

Evening Star, Issue 19021, 17 August 1925, Page 6

THE PRINCE IN SOUTH AMERICA.

Tim Prince of Wales has reason to make tho most of his South American tour. When it is finished lie will have, no new continents to visit. Ho will have exhausted the list. 'Tho reception which he has received at Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, suggests that South America, for its part, will not fail to'niako tho most of him, though its spirited Bopnhlicans have not usually boon credited with any special regard for princes. It says something for their good-will towards the British Empire and for this Prince’s reputation for charm and democracy that his tour is being made by their invitation, and wc need have no doubt that both feelings will he strengthened by the conclusion of his visit. Tho time for it was most opportunely chosen on more than one account. Tho present year, as wo have recalled before, is tho centenary of tho treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation made between Britain and Argentina, which was the

first recognition by any European country of the national existence of any South American Slate. The present month, moreover, will be marked by the celebration of the centenary of the declaration of independence by Uruguay, which took place on August '25, 1825, and was made effective, after a three years’ war with Brazil, by the Treaty of Montevideo, signed on August 27, 1825. Brazil was then a kingdom under a Portuguese sovereign, so that the Uruguayans were thou lighting against monarchy. Their small country—it is the smallest in size and smallest but one in population in South America, with a million and a-half of inhabitants —had for a long time a most stormy history. Situated between Brazil and Argentina there was constant struggle for its possession between the two and between Portugal and Spain. Racially and historically it belongs to the Spanish system, like the Argentine; geographically it is a more natural part of Brazil. During a period of less than 100 years it changed hands eight times. One of the first acts of the Prince of Wales was to visit the tomb of Jose Artigas, known as the Liberator of Uruguay, and to place a bronze wreath upon it. Descended from the first Spanish settlors, Artigas during many years was the chief champion of Ins countrymen, resolved to be free equally from either the Spanish or the Portuguese yoke. Uruguay was known then as La Banda Orientale. Artigas did not take part, apparently, in the last war against Brazil, by which independence was finally obtained. For the last thirty years of his life he was an exile, and ho died in Paraguay in 1850. The history of Uruguay had not begun oven then to bo peaceful. Local feuds continued to break out, of which first Brazil and then the Argentine endeavored to take advantage to reverse earlier fortunes of war. In 1805 the republic joined with Argentina and Brazil in their war, which lasted for five years, against Paraguay, and its independence has not since been questioned.

It is surprising bow much the history of the South American republics has been one of warfare, despite the lair auspices under which they might hare been thought to have starled their independent career, remote from all the age-long dissensions ol Kuropo, and protected by the Monroe Doctrine against external aggression. Uruguay and its neighbors have long passed their old fighting period, and a, settlement is now promised of a. long-standing grievance affecting the other side of the continent which should go far to ensure the future peace, and with it the prosperity, of South America. From Uruguay' the Prince of Wales will go on to tho Argentine, and afterwards pay a visit to Chile. Peru and Chile were at war as recently as 1884, and there has been imminent danger within tho last few years of a resumption of that conflict over the disputed area of TacnaAriea, which was seized by Chile, and which Peru claims. The contending parties were persuaded to refer this forty-year-old dispute to President Coolidge for his arbitration, and the President’s award, which proposed a, plebiscite as a means of settlement,

was announced in March this year. Chile was satisfied, but Peru demurred (hat it was unfair to decide the issue by a plebiscite of inhabitants after those had been lor lorty years under the control of Chile. Now the Peruvian Government has agreed to the course suggested, and its acceptance lias been hailed with no ordinary satisfaction by flio United States. “It .seems to leave no doubt,” says one leading journal, “as to the final removal of this longstanding source of controversy and possible armed coulliot, not only between the two nations directly involved, but also among a majority of (ho other Latin-American republics, whoso sympathies naturally have been with one or other of the disputants.” So that the Prince’s visit to Chile also will bo made at the happiest time.