COLONISATION IN SOUTH AMERICA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 779, 4 February 1887, Page 9

COLONISATION IN SOUTH AMERICA.

Official sanction l.as, within the post few days hcen given by the German authorities for the of a ‘National’ Transoceanic Bank, having its headquarters at Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Ayres, and Berlin , ana pressure is bein 2 brought to bear upon ‘he Government to obtain a withdrawal of the so called ‘ Beydtsche ’ rescript, promulga ei in ?R7Q which prohibits the shipping of Tn view of this, it any not bo amiss to conaider how far German aspirations for colonial exnansi n in Southern America are justified by P the economic conditions of the Fatherland, and wnat prospect there is of their finding legitimate fulfilment in the regions 0.. the pf ana and Uruguay. Taking into account the oressnre at home, it can hardly be denied the desire for -terriorial acquisitions S“.d b l. perfectly P.tssr.l. N„.!»r. m Europe is the struggle for existence the nre3eat moment than in Germany, nation is growing at the rate of 1.8 per cent, ner annum, practically at about the same rate as the English. Allowing for deaths, there u an addition to the population ° f 600 £J° vearlv, which, deducting 2 f °’™° flmirrratc Icaveß ail increase of 400,000 for whom room must be made and /rod provided. Wages, on the other hand, are incredibly lmv while the pricm of commodities ar« not falling proportionately. Tailors, working thirteen ; L UP , receive on an average Isd. to l».i. per ) day .’’shoemakers, 13d. to 16d.; carpenter, and’colliers, 16d.masons and smiths, from to 19J Ironworkers and mill-operatives to “ “ wo,«. Krupp « B.~». W- » first class hand under 13s. a week, a Intinrera of the second clas3 get only 10s. ‘Saxon clockmakers work for .less than 63., Silesian nailmakera for Jess than 4s. a week ; Silesian districts are stated to A? the week.y earnin 3 .. .. fc u e average wage while S. “ s ™ e |b.'2f"mc»t. This u a hir s»e»»cp. of the Prons.ro of low ”*| e “ 'J ”|» T "u*«Sriis«ly if> r 4 land, tbe con.w f r, nv ,\ De r head; m hectolitre (P roba y ther wo rds, the German Germany, *64. I« other as much ?r°eadTtbe EnglUhman, although he ought to be taking an absolutely greater amount to allowance, thereto fche diefcary> fwes arl suggestive of the systematic these - it o laboring classes in the SJSS* Th.of Sho ..ru f io Eatbe ian . ion moreover, in two conti ”?°r '“"X do"w«d between 1871 C °d V I C R77 rising from 6,403 to 12,804, while the number of persons imprisoned went from f? 8 000 to 102 000—and the other, a suicideralfin the manufacturing distnets.-where rhe nresaure is heaviest, that is perfectly aonalUng. Suicides in Saxony have attained S enormous figure .of 800 P« »*'“•*• ?n to the rurai° districts* the Kampf urn Raum m as heavi^ an f fp rop finds hU holding Bauer or peasant-proprietor “ rio ; na family. ! SgaSTu 4 oato. elpeo.ion. ] thf B'nray youdg Mectienburger or ro».™4:iT*tf 3ft handicraft or ra , farmer has ““fi'rlu?.. -oil U. I»ltog. .nd with ™ cholC ° 5? *d his little savings, betake the P roceed , . BOng t 0 a country where the himself and _ x : a tence B ro more favorable, conditions o to ease off the Of coarse i cilitating the emigra- j pressure at thousand annually, ■i° nof ld be a very Arable thing. And to this* extent the hankering of Germans after tms extern. their own to which to colonial P° 33 ” 8 .. 0 [ their superabundant transfer a F° ° t *T Whether South populace “ v ® J f j j desire, and become America Germania beyond the seas 8 is another and a very different matter, fleas, is dorman colonies It is quite true have so far dono organised m South Atnerm fairly we . . . nd barring the untolu»S”™olt’tat'.Hooded tb. attempt of SSr*rtoS and Ho, r ie..ig to careo of something like 40,000 . compatriots into Brazil, the expenmenUl settlements between Porto Allegro and Buenos Ayres, have been not unpromising. In tno province of Santa Catherine, there is the mi porfcant Dona Francesca colony, , fou ” ded 1849 by the Hamburg Colonisation Society, and numbering 15 000 Germans, together with another 2,000 in the capital, Jotnville. Close by this is Sac Benito, with aboot 3,000 more. On the river Itajahy, some sixty miles from ♦he sea are ilumenau —on which tne Brazilian Government spent .the German settlers are said to number

11,000, and Brusque, with 2,500 Germans who I received help to the amount of £200,000, In the Dorn Pedro colony, there are some 3 0 O Germane scattered among the 16.000 Italians located there. In the neighboring province. Bio Gram'S do Sul. there is a regular chain < f German settlements beginning a h'tle wav south of Porto Allegro, end stretching thence in a north-wester y direction. First comes Sao Leopoldo. with 4f 00 German farmers ; Hamburgerherg, with 400 ; M.mdo » ovo. with 3 000 mfd 500 in the capital, 1 aguara ; N.-va pefcropoli-. with 3 COO ; Santa O.uz, with 1 600 nearly all Germans ; Germania, round whiih are Congregated «yearly'l7.ooo J then Sao Lorenzo, founded m 1850, and now containing 7,000 Germans, the whole occnpying a territory coneilerably larger than the Kingdom of Saxony. One way and another it is computed that in Santa Catherine out of a total population of 200.000, there are fully 50,000 Germans ; aud in Rio Grande among 580.000, there are at least 70.000 of Teutonic origin; besides another 10 000 ir» La Plata. This array of German settlemen‘B locks quite imposing, and allowing for nil exafirgera ion on the part of partial winters like

C. Ifi. Yung, the author of the 4 Deutsche Colomcn,’ is certainly creditable to the Fatherland. Taken aa they stand, and. as Teutonic advocates of Stale directed colonisation always quote them, the figures would appear to give color to the views of those who see in the prosperous settlements of Southern America the nucleus of a powerful and compact Teutonic State in close and cordial relations with the Fatherland. As a matter of fact though, Germans take no account of the real hindrance in the way of a pure.y Germanic occupation of these regions. Bering out of question the unfriendly eyes with which the jL'entonio immigrants are regarded by the natives of Jja Plata, Brazil, Urnguav,. and Chili, the fact that they are purposely sandwiched between Italians and Spaniards in order to merge the nationalities as much as possible,, and that Spanish is the official language. and has to be taught in all the schools established by the new-comers ; leaving out, we repeat, the jealousy of the Hispano-Indians, who are as peppery as they are patriotic, there is one single and sufficient reason why the German element can never attain anything like a preponderating weight In Southern America. Germany is anticipated. Italy is already in possession of the field, is numerically far and away in advance of her, and is pouring her settlers into the provinces between Porto Allegro and Chilli at a rate that dwarfs German immigration to a relatively insignificant proportion, and bids fair at the present rate of increase, to lay the foundation there of an enduring and powerful Italy beyond the sea». German writers manage to leave this fact alto-

gether out of their calculations'when discus--Bjng the probabilities of a successful Teutonic settlement of the States on the banks of the River Plate. But in so doing £liey are reckoning without their host.. The sooner they disillusion tbemelves on this point the better. Germans —and probably many Englishmen too, for the matter of that—appear to> be scarcely cognisant of the proportions which the emigration movement is as-uming in It®*? from year to year. As a colonising State, the Peninsula is beginning to run the Fatherland very close. In 1871 «he number of emig who left Italy stood already at over 111,000 annually. Between 1871 and 1880 nearly a million and a quarter sought homes in foreign countries, and since that time the figures have been Bteadily rising. In 1880; they stool at 135,000 and in 188$ they were as high as 169,000. Of the Italian emigrants, nearly one half, it is estimated, settle in America, by far and away the larger proportion in the Southern Stales of tbe continent- For instance, in 1882—the last year for which the statistics are given in ‘ I/T'talia in America (Genoa, 1883) —it is stated that of the 70.000 who sailed for America in tbe preceding twelve months, 40,.000 found homes in South Brazil, the Argentine Republic, Uruguay, Paraguay, ar.d Buenos Ayres ; and this calculation makes allowance for the return to their native land of a proportion of tbe emigrants amounting to 2D per cent,, a very liberal allowance. In face of such an influx of Italians,

German immigration there sinks into, relative unimportance. Germany claims that since 1870 - that is, in fifteen years—more than 27,000 of her sons hare settle.! in South America. But during this period Italy alone has been pouring in annually a greater number than this, while the total of tho j e already settled there cannot fall short of 750,000. The volume, moreover* is increasing yearly by 10,000 to Isiooo. This completely swamp* the Teutonic element. The Italian Government has made no-attempt to direct or control the migratory movement on foot in the Peninsula i but, with true foresight, has given the colonists in their new homes subs'antial token of its undiminisbed interest and good wishes. Every year the Italian Chamber votes a handsome sum—it cannot, we imagine, be less than £SOOOO-in aid cf the schools and institutions established by the settlers in South America. The result is that as the colonies expand and grow, the bond between them and the mother country is becoming stronger and stronger; and Italy would lock with komething more than an unfriendly eye upon any attempt on the part of Germans to play a leading part in the La 1 lata States. But the relative numbers of the two nationalities settled ‘there—three-quarters of a million, increasing at the rate ol thirty and forty tbousaod annually, against one hundred and twenty thousand, increasing by a couple of thousand yearly—shows clearly the aDsurdity of the German project, even it we leave out of reckoning again, after the fashion

of the Bsrlin Colonisation societies, tne 400 000 Spaniards and 80,000 Frenchmen who are also settled in South America. Nor is this all. If La Plata were accessible to-morrow to the German Bauer, and the fare as low as to New York, his ethnic instincts, which are deeply rooted, would still keep him m e belt of Saxon migration. The farmer, who naturally moves to Northern America in preference to the South, does e because the climatic conditions are more favorable, the surroundings more congenia., the conditions of life such as he is accustome to, and because he finds himself among friencs 1 instead of being sandwiched between hostile nationalities. Übi bonum ibi patria is as true of the Gorman emigrant of to-day as of his Aiyan predecessor in prehistoric times, feßsora may talk of the German ideal and the

dignity of German culture, but eupeptic Mecklenburg h peasant* and Pomeranian farmers think very little of cuUural i and a good deal of free land. They are patriotic enough and ready, "he" ca' l ed npon, to defend the Fatherland. But tney have a whole ome objection to starving, at home, or incurring the resentment of nos. lie people abroad, for the sal>o of an idea! »k.th presents itself to them in iho jh,pe of the recruiting sergeant, scanty to od, and heavy taxation.