CHILI AND ARGENTINE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 7139, 1 November 1901, Page 4

CHILI AND ARGENTINE.

In connection with the trouble which has arisen between Chili and the Argentine republics as the result of the latter annexing territory in the Cordilleras, the following information as to the fighting capacity of the two should prove of interest. The Chilian army consists nominally of 9,000 men armed with the Mauser rifle. There is also a National Guard of citizens, every male Chilian between the ages of 20 and 40 years being liable to bo called out. The male population is about a million and a quarter, the foreign element numbering about seventy-three thousand persons of both sexes. The floet consists of five armour-clad Bhips, four cruisers, eleven gunboats, four destroyers, and about twenty first and second-class torpedo-boats. The other republic, Argentina, is much stronger, and has a total effective army of 29,513 officers and men, but the National Guard strength is put at 471,912, those twenty years of age being mobilised every year and given two months drill in camp. There is also a military school for cadets and noncommissioned officers. The navy consists of four coast defence armourclads, fifteen cruisers and gunboats, four destroyers, and twenty-two first and second-class torpedo-boats. The Buenos Ayres, the new second-class cruiser built by Armstrongs, is one of the fastest sea - going vessels afloat, her main speed during the six hours' trial at natural draught being 28,202 knots. Five steamships have been bought'by the Argentine from Italian and Spanish companies for conversion into cruisers. Judging from the above it would appear that whether Chili is .right or wrong, the odds are somewhat ngainst her.