South America and the War

CAMBRIDGE AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1918
This little book contains the substance, revised and adapted for publication, of lectures given in the Lent Term, 1918, at King's College, London, under the Tooke Trust for providing lectures on economic subjects. The course of lectures was in the first instance an endeavour to perform a war-service by drawing attention to the activity of the Germans in Latin America, and particularly to the ingenuity and tenacity of their efforts to hold their economic ground during the war, with a view to extending it after the conclusion of peace. A second object was to examine more generally the bearings of the war on those countries, and the influence of the present crisis on their development and status in the world.
These two topics, though closely connected, are distinct. The first has an immediate and present importance, the second has a wider historic significance. The logical connexion between them may not seem obvious. Yet the first enquiry, concerning German war-efforts in Latin America, naturally and inevitably led to the second, concerning the larger issues involved. The former topic is treated in Chapters I, II and III, the latter in Chapters IV, V and VI. The term South America is used in the title of this book as a matter of customary convenience; but it is not meant to exclude the Antillean Republics or the Latin-American States stretching to the North-west of the Isthmus of Panamá.
Clearly, an essay of this kind, if it was to be of any use, had to be produced quickly. It was impossible to wait in hopes of achieving some kind of completeness. The immediate and urgent importance of the subject has been signally emphasised by the despatch of a special British Diplomatic Mission to the Latin-American Republics, and by the King's message addressed to British subjects in Latin America, in order to inculcate the spirit of collective effort.
In the course of this essay frequent mention is made of the struggle for emancipation, of the part which Englishmen took in that struggle and of the great services rendered to the cause of independence by the action of British statesmen, notably Canning. In a book which aims mainly at a review of present conditions, it is impossible to enlarge upon these topics, since their adequate treatment would involve some consideration of political action on the European Continent and in the United States. But since this passage of past history bears closely on the present topic, it may be here mentioned that a brief account of these matters is given in the Cambridge Modern History , vol. X, chap. IX.