BOLIVIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13355, 8 December 1906, Page 1 (Supplement)

BOLIVIA.

A COUNTRY WHERE NO ONE THINKS , OF STEALING.

The following is from the report -of an interview Review of Reviews: '\l

. South America is for : the British public so much of a sealed book that I.was very glad to welcome to Mowbray Hou«e an old subscriber who has spent nearly half a century in that little-known continent. Mr. Moore, inspector-general of the National Bank of Bolivia, called upon me last month and kkd.lv consented to be interviewed for the benefit of his fellow-sub-scribers. He has spent years of his life in Mexico, m Chili, in Peru, in the Argentine and. he is at present in London on furlough from; the responsible post which , ho occupies in Bolivia. . Tell me about Bolivia," I said. "Bolivia." said Mr. Moore, is the Arcadia of South America. It. is a State which, is almost cut off from the outer world. Its people live secluded, and they have the qualities and the faults of the ancient Arcadians, who, if Greek literature be any guide, were very much like the modern Bolivians."

, "Let us have their. virtues first." "The pre-eminent virtue of the Bolivians is their honesty in great things. Bolivia- is the only country in the world in which bankers can put £10,000 in specie on a mule, and send it without an escort through a scantily-peopled wilderness without the least fear that anyone will steal the money. If, by any almost inconceivable chance the money was stolen the Indians would never rest til: they tracked; down the thieves and delivered them up to justice." "Are they as honest in everything as they are in this?"

Alas no. In small things, like their predecessors in Greece, they are pilferers. And in the service-of the "State there is much corruption. It has been bitterly said that in Bolivia all the intelligent men are thieves and all the honest men fools. I believe that the same was said of the ancient Arcadians."

" What about the resources of the country?" " They are enormous. Bolivia is simply gorged with minerals. , Her tin mines run deepest in the world. A Bolivian recently sold one half of one of his tin mines for

5350,000. Her silver mines are also fabu-

lously rich, but most of them, have boen ruined by bad management. The country has hardly been tapped. Imagine a vast region of 700,000 souare miles- served by only one railway 700 miles long, and a great part of this in foreign territory!" " Why, tho Germ; 1 Empire only covers 208. souare miles. So Bolivia is more

than thrice the size of Germany, and has only 700 miles of railway?"

" That' is the fact, and only 1430 miles of cart road available for four months in

the year. Communications are chiefly carried on by means of pack-mules. What is almost worse than having only one railway is that Bolivia has no seaport. Her natural outlet to the ocean was taken from her bv Chili at the end of the war. and today she is shut up and shut off from the world."