TO-DAY IN CHILI

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18746, 27 December 1922, Page 6

TO-DAY IN CHILI

Mr Oswald H. Evans, F.G.S,, contributes to Chambers’s Journal an interesting article on Chili, which has been passing through critical times. . Chili, which stretches for about 260 miic9 in a general north and south direction, with an average width of under 63 miles, irom the tropics almost to the Antarctic, is divided climatically into three main zones, striaingly differentiated from another by nual rainfall, by productions, and by their inhabitants. , , ' The extreme north, where the armed forces of Chili and Peru watch one another distrustfully across 1 a disputed frontier, verges on the region of possible sugar growingAs we proceed south, the blank, rainless desert yields here and there, along the eastward flank of the coast Cordillera, the nitrate of soda that is at onoe the fortune and tna bane of the republic. Desert conditions persist, with tiny patches of cultivable val.ey, to within a few hundred miles of Valparaiso, the chief port, but with an increasing average rainfall, the annual fluctuations of which decido-lho loss or gain of millions of dollars derived from the uncertain harvests. The centre is a glorious land of mountain and fertile plain, watered by many shallow, , sparkling rivers fed by the Andean snows, and destined soon to produce electrical energy that will revolutionise the conditions of industry. In one of those great extensions of inland plain dies Santiago, the capita), “beautiful for situation,” with the nuge brown barrier of the Cordillera for background This is the main centre of population. where modernity fights, hitherto with imperfect success, against the piacid conservatism of ideas inhcr.tcd from colonial Spain. Some 00 miles in a straight line from Santiago, but effectively separated from it by the meandering line of a State railway that adds a third more to the distance, the port of Valparaiso huddles round a raised beach at the foot of erstwhile barren hills that now begin to respond to the judicious planting of innumerable eucalypti, Santiago and Valparaiso are as the poles asunder. The latter, in great part destroyed by the earthquake of 1906, rose from its ashes with unprecedented rapidity, with wider streets following an ampler plan. Reconstruction still progressively continues, the cramped buildings of an earlier day giving place to modern concrete structures, with the skyscraper looming in the near future. At the same time, the port works, a wotfderful feat of engineering to the credit of Messrs Peareon and Son, go quietly on, with every month some new extension of massive masonry, and in the end, unless unwise counsels prevail, the full scheme will be carried out, and Valparaiso will bo converted from a dangerous open roadstead into a commodious and secure harbour for the merchant fleets of the world.

I would emphasis® this note of quiet activity, carried on in face of innumerable difficulties and delays. Under our eyes Chili is changing, modernising. The statement applies not only to the capital and the chief ports, but to nearly every town of importance throughout the republic. Everywhere there is talk of paving and draining and improved water supply, and in iSomo places South American eloquence is actually bearing unwonted fruit in accomplished facts. Much, very much, remains to be done before' the country is brought into line with the needs of to-day. It will be necessary in the present article to indicate many dark shadows and discouraging symptoms, but none the less wo may take heart from the conviction of the fundamental soundness of the country, and from the existence of forces that ar© continually working for better things. To return from this brief digression. To the south of Valparaiso the rainfall and Ihe fertility of the country, actual or potential, increase. The leading town of the middle south is Concepcron, with its port. Talcahuano, ah important naval base. Near at hand lies the coal region, a group ot mines working near and under the sea. the deposits lying in small basins of Tertiary age, and furnishing abundantly the essential fuel for Chilian industries—when the miners are not on strike. Important deposits remain to bp investigated whilst inland there are big outcrops of oil shale awaiting study and development. Near Rancagua the American Bronden Copper Company has its immense establishment, with a town of its own (Sewell), at present, like the twin establishment in the north (Chuquicamata), temporarily under a cloud. The true south, a region of heavy rainfall, of forest, volcanoes, and industrious Germans, hides vast potential riches for tho future. There are great timber possibilities and wood-pulp of excellent, quality has been made on a small scale. Farther south still, wide areas are known only imperfectly, though German and Scandinavian explorers— Norclenskjold among them—have done excellent work in mapping and charting. Tho tangle of mountain, forest, island, and fiord stretches southward, till the increasing rigour of the climate stunts the forest trees and tho mountains sink into pasture lands feeding countless flocks of sheep, where men apeak of nothing but wool and frozen mutton. Suck, at least, was the former burden of their conversation; to-day they have

strikes and “ sabotage ” and the work ot Bolshevist to deal with. Tierra del Fuego is parted equally between Chili and Argentina, and hardy settlers have exploited the island to within measurable disr tanco of Capo Horn. The census taken at the beginning of 1920, when every allowance has been made for the difficulty of securing absolute results among people who take to the hills at the eight of an official or a vaccinator, proves that the population of this vast extent of country is considerably under 4,000,000. The rate of annual increase is ‘ very slow, 1.18 per cent., a discouraging fact explained try the enormoue mortality among infants and the recurrence of devastating epidemics. Last year typhus wrought havoc in town and country. , At the time of writing smallpox is firmly established in the north, and tends to spread southward. In 1905-9 this scourge devastated the country, and although conditions with- regard to vaccination have improved, the financial crisis through which the country is passing, the prevalence of unemployment, and the resulting malnutrition of the people give occasion for the gravest apprehension. The housing of the poorer classes is deplorable, incredibly bad, and improvement, even in the large towns, is almost inappreciable. In Valparaiso itself, though the drainage service, in the hands of an English company, is excellent the municipal cleansing of the city leaves much to be desired. With regard to the distribution of the population, it is interesting to note that the foreigner has supplanted the middle and lower class Chilian in nearly every branch .of industry in which the quality best described as stickability ” is required. Thera \ are very few Chilian shopkeepers, Italians of the rapacious type having a practical monopoly of small retail business, shared only with Turks, Syrians, and Levantines. The Oriental element, principally Chinese and Japanese, is steadily growing in importance, though not as yet sufficiently to attract public attention. The Chilian of the upper class, in general, seems to have but one ambition; the law, or Governiuent employment as a gate to politics and “ soft jobs.” Honourable exceptions to this rule are to be found in the naval and military services, and it is far from my intention to convey the idea that Chilians are missing in the front ranks of the medical and other learned professions. When the war had settled down into an industry, i,n enormous demand arose for Chilian nitrate as the raw material of nitric acid, and hence nitre-explosives. The nitrate industry revived, and entered on a period of unparalleled prosperity. The northern porta again became centres of feverish activity, the price of nitrate steadily rose, and the tax on the huge exportation poured’ great) sums into the, national treasury. In 1918 the quantity exported reached 94,800,000 Spanish quintals. With a view to maintaining prices, the nitrate producers formed an association, and in the end succeeded in bringing the few dissidents within the fold Prices still rose, until, for the agriculturist, the fertiliser became a luxury. It cannot be eaid that this unexpected wave of pseudo prosperity greatly benefited ' the people as a wjiole. The price of living rose so greatly as t td neutralise the advantages of the boom; and those prices, it may be added, have since gone higher still. Everybody in a position to do so was shamelessly, profiteering. Mushroom fortunes were made, and, like mushrooms, have since vanished, many of them. With the long-continued depression in trade Chili was plunged into an acute financial and industrial crisis, the more hopeless as it was contingent on world-wide conditions. The nitrate industry came to a dead, stop; the towns of the centre were once more burdened with the sheltering and feeding of thousands of nitrate operatives, at a time when these provinces were themselves suffering from the paralysis of their trade. . Whilst the prosperity of the nitrate industry does not necessarily improve the lot of the general population, catastrophe inevitably spreads ruin throughout the country. An enormous stock of nearly a million tons of nitrate, fixed by international agreement at a high selling price, found no purchasers, and was faced by < the competition of the German artificial product in a market where formerly it held, almost undisputed sway. The great impetus to the manufacture of synthetic nitrogen compounds was given when the iron circle shut off Germany from the outer world. Under the stimulus of necessity, work that had long been progressing quietly, was pushed through to a successful issue; our great enemy supplied her war n.eds and emerged from the conflict with perfected processes that have, rendered her, it is asserted, for ever independent of external sources of available nitrogen, and even in a position to supply her neighbours. A cargo of artificial “Stickstoff” has even reached Chili, the home of the natural salt. Chili is fighting hard against acceptance of th s ultimatum of the industrial struggle, But if it has not come already, in the end it is bound to come. The only hope for Chilian nitrates is to fight its competitors on tile basis of low prices, when the superiority of the native product to any cyanamides or other forms of artificial nitrogen compounds mar cany due weight. Chili lias corn and wine, oil and honey, sheep and kine and goats, the raw material of food and clothing in far greater measure than sufficed ancient Greec? to develop her c vilisation. The parallel as regards material resource's is, indeed, a striking one. The same predominance of mountain, ths v same ready access to the sea, mark th© physical structive of both countries; ths absence of navigablo rivers and regional scarcity of water are. characteristic; whilst both aliko are bathed in glorious sunlight, and pellucid, atmosphere that impart to the mountains of Chili the violet hue ascribed by Ovid to the distant hills of Hymottus. There the'parallel ends. Greece throughout her history looked back on the Golden Age; in Chili the Golden Age has never been. The future of the country lies, far mote than they are to-day able to believe, in the hands and hearts of her own people.

A whip snake nearly 4ft in length was discovered in a bale cf Turkish carpets which arrived some time ago in London. —Something like 10,000.000 or more gross tons out of a total of 62,000,000 total world tonnage is now idle, or between 15 and 20 per cent., according, to information gathered on the New. York Herald’s shipping page. Tho United States Shipping Board 7 s idle fleet accounts for 4,625,000 of the idle tonnage. British shipping _ has been nearly as much affected as American. It is estimated that “1,900,000 tons of British shipping is eating its head off in idleness, or 10 per cent, of the total merchant marine of the kingdom.” Further facts on the world situation are given:— Although the tonnage laid up is not generally the most efficient, the average value of the idle vessels is estimated at not less than £lO a gross ton. Thus the_ total capital involved Hie world over is in excess cf £100,000,000. Based on costs of construction, the figure would be much higher, as much of the tonnage, especially that of the Shipping Board, was built after 1915 and at the peak of building costs. Many of the phrases which are in common use to-day date back many hundreds of years. Take, for instance, “There’s main a slip ’twixt cup and lip.” This dates bacl to an ancient king of the island of Samos, in the Grecian Archipelago. The king had planted a vineyard, but one of his slaves, whom he had ill-treated, predicted that he would not live to drink any of the wine. When the vntage came, tho king, with a cup of the wine in fils hands, asked his menial what had become of his prophecy. The other replied; “I think there’s many a slip ’twixt cup and lip.” At that moment word was brought that a wild boar had broken into the vineyard, and was doing great damage. The king hastily put down his untouched can, seized his weapons, and went out. But in ihe chase he was killed, and the prophecy of the slave was fulfilled. “Done to a turn” is said to have originated from the martyrdom of St. Lawrence. He was sentenced to be roasted alive on a rridiron. The story goes that during his torture he calmly requested the attendants to turn, him over, as he was thoroughly roasted on one side. Hence the phrase “Done to a turn.”