CHAPTER IV
THE FORMATIVE PERIOD
The long struggle against Spain accustoming Chileans to military service and uprooting the system under which the country had been ruled for centuries, necessarily placed the control of government in the hands of the generals. Like all other Spanish-American countries Chile had to pass through a period of irresponsible pretorian rule and the sterilising horrors of wars in which one ambitious chief tried to displace another. But anarchy lasted only a short time; the civil element was powerful even at the beginning; and Chileans never acquired the revolution habit. Her government has been stable longest and her political history the least checkered of any Spanish-American country. To this result, so happy for the internal prosperity and external power of the nation, several causes have co-operated. First of all has been the existence of a powerful landed aristocracy whose interests lay rather in cultivating their estates in the security of peace and order than in trying to make fortunes by taxes wrung from a poverty-stricken, reluctant proletariat. The people are by climate and inheritance industrious, naturally inclined toward industrial progress, agricultural rather than pastoral, prolific and colonising, and though pugnacious, they are not, like the inert Indians of the Andean and Central American countries, to be bullied into following the first revolutionary chief who comes along. Further the country is geographically compact—a narrow strip of plain with easy communication between its provinces, and, unlike the Argentine and Colombia, not divided into widely distant districts, each with its isolated capital, its local chiefs, its ambition for hegemony and autonomy.
In the throes of the first war for independence Carrera was hardly able to maintain himself, and a civil revolution had as much to do with his overthrow as his military misfortunes. O'Higgins, even while supported by San Martin's army of Argentine veterans, held control by a very precarious grip. During 1819 and 1820 there were no serious troubles because attention was absorbed by the war against Peru and over Cochrane's naval victories, but no sooner had San Martin left, than symptoms of discontent again appeared on the surface. Complaints against the arbitrary and corrupt practices of O'Higgins's ministers were loud and unrestrainable; the aristocracy opposed his measures, and the very senate he had appointed to assist in the government openly obstructed him. Theoretically a radical, he called a national congress to establish the new nation on a democratic basis. However, even his own nominees moved slowly, while Coquimbo, the northern, and Concepcion, the southern capital, were hotbeds of opposition. In the latter part of 1822 General Freire, the hero of the campaign which had redeemed southern Chile, took the initiative at Concepcion. The southern provinces declared against O'Higgins; Freire prepared to advance on Santiago. Coquimbo followed—an old Carrera partisan assuming the governorship. The northern revolutionists invaded the centre, while news came that Freire was rapidly coming up from the south. In January, 1823, O'Higgins handed his resignation to a committee of Santiago citizens, who appointed a temporary junta and summoned a congress. A few days later General Freire landed at Valparaiso with sixteen hundred soldiers, and on his advancing to the neighbourhood of the capital, congress very prudently offered him the dictatorship. The aristocracy and the people soon found that they had gained nothing in this exchange of masters. After a short spasm of reform, the public finances fell into horrible disorder, while the ruling clique enriched itself at the expense of the treasury.
Freire permitted congress to promulgate a Constitution which in effect recognised the aristocracy as the dominant political element, but at heart he was a radical and an absolutist, and the document soon proved to be only so much waste paper. He showed his anti-clerical tendencies by refusing to come to any agreement with the Pope's representative, who arrived in 1824 charged with the reorganisation of the Chilean hierarchy. He summarily banished the Bishop of Santiago because of his royalist leanings, and issued decrees confiscating Church property. In 1825 he dissolved congress and for some months ruled frankly as a dictator. When he issued writs for a new national assembly he solemnly promised not to interfere in the elections, but so little confidence was felt that, outside of Santiago, no one participated and from there only a few members were returned. Freire soon quarreled with this rump parliament, and its dissolution was followed by political confusion in which parties became daily more sharply defined and acrimonious. There were "federalists," who advocated provincial assemblies; "pipiolas," who followed the strong liberal chief, General Pinto; "o'higginistas," who favoured the return of the former dictator; and finally the conservatives, nicknamed "pelucones" from the perukes—pelucas in Spanish—which old-fashioned Chilean gentlemen wore. Only the military power and prestige of Freire, coupled with his real abilities and resolution, prevented attempts at forcibly displacing him.
Early in 1826 the Spaniards who until then had held out on the island of Chiloë, surrendered, and this signal service to the country somewhat strengthened the dictator. In July of that year a congress met, composed of men favourable to Freire, and a majority of the members were federalists, who divided Chile into eight autonomous provinces. But it soon became evident that such a system must encounter strong opposition. The provincial assemblies would pass laws at variance with the measures of the central government, and in the next moment adopt resolutions instructing their delegates in the national congress to oppose the permanent establishment of a federated republic, declaring emphatically in favour of national unity. Nevertheless, the liberals persisted in their efforts to impose on the reluctant country a brand new form of government. Doctrinaires and soldiers were still in the saddle, and only close observation of the signs of the times revealed the fact that discussion was becoming broader and the military elements in danger of losing their preponderance. By the beginning of 1827 Freire had sunk to be little more than the doubtful leader of a fraction of a party. His administration was in horrible financial straits, the expenditures were twice the income, and in May he resigned in favour of the vice-president, General Pinto. The latter was an eminent lawyer as well as a brave soldier, who held very radical views. Continuing the policy of his predecessor he summoned a congress which swept away the old Constitution and framed one that was frankly federalistic, and during 1828 and 1829 he and his party struggled to put it into application. But the sullen resistance of the aristocrats and the rivalries among the jealous liberal leaders were too much for him. Party passion became so acute and politicians so irritated and aggressive that it became impossible to carry on any regular government. In November Pinto resigned and Vicuña, president of the senate, tried his hand at holding the liberals together and suppressing the now confident and aggressive conservatives.
Not only political but also social anarchy obtained throughout the country. Disorders were prevalent, robberies occurred daily, life was unsafe, foreigners were fleeing to Valparaiso. General Prieto, commanding the army on the Araucanian frontier, revolted and began a march on the capital. Vicuña hurried to the northern provinces to try to hold them quiet, while General Lastra went against Prieto. Under the leadership of Portales, the ablest statesman Chile has ever produced, the conservatives at Santiago organised a junta and bade open defiance to the liberals. When Lastra and Prieto met there was no fighting. The two generals held a conference and arranged a compromise by which Freire was to be recalled. But affairs at Santiago were in more resolute hands than theirs. Portales absolutely refused to agree, and back of him stood the conservative party, well organised and knowing clearly what it wanted. The conservatives had the land, the wealth, the prestige of social position, the ardent support of the clergy; their influence ramified everywhere; they had been welded together during the long dominance of the liberals; and, best of all, they followed a strong leader. The army could not be united in unquestioning support of any one general. Prieto decided to cast his lot with the conservatives, and occupied Santiago. The congress which was hastily elected naturally proved frankly and aggressively conservative. The liberals flew to arms, calling on Freire to lead them, and two thousand Chileans perished in battle before the final and decisive conservative victory at Lircay (April 17, 1830). Freire fled to Peru, Prieto was elected provisional president, and Portales became vice-president.
VIEW OF SANTIAGO, CHILE, ABOUT 1835.
Though he owed his elevation to his military successes the new president did not attempt to rule as a dictator, and co-operated cordially with the vice-president in organising a parliamentary civil government on an enduring basis. Prieto played not illy the rôle of a Washington to Portales' Hamilton. Militarism, radicalism, and federalism had been tried and found wanting and the great conservative statesman took care that the new order should be tainted with none of them. Two years were spent in careful experiment and deliberation, and the Constitution framed in 1833 has remained, with a few amendments, the fundamental law of Chile to this day. The most aristocratic and centralised of American Constitutions, it has given Chile the strongest and stablest government in Spanish America. The foundation of political power is the property-holding class. No man may vote unless he possesses land, invested capital, or an equivalent income from his trade or profession, and congress may fix the amount of the qualification as high as it pleases. Political power originated in the oligarchy, and its exercise was delegated to a president whose functions are even more extensive than those of the chief magistrate of the United States. Ipso facto commander-in-chief of the armed forces, free to select his cabinet and the chief functionaries of state without the confirmation of a senate, not subject to impeachment, possessing an effective control over the judiciary, given a practically absolute veto, with the intendentes of the provinces and the governors of the departments receiving from him their commissions and acting as his agents, it would seem that the president of Chile is little less than an absolute and irresponsible ruler. But from the beginning the executive was in practice dependent upon the oligarchy as represented in congress. The instances in which a president has tried to rule in defiance of the wishes of the aristocracy have been rare, and never successful.
When Prieto's first term expired in 1836, many of the conservatives pressed Portales to accept the presidency, but he was satisfied with his place as chief minister. Under his vigorous and intelligent direction the courts and clergy had been reformed, the police organised, a national guard created, the budgets balanced, the executive and congress worked harmoniously together, peace and order had replaced confusion. Chile's feet had been placed on the path of social and industrial progress.
The exiled Freire meanwhile was receiving aid from Santa Cruz who had recently created the Peru-Bolivian Confederation with himself as its chief, and whose ambitious designs included the installation of a government in Chile which would be his complaisant and obliged friend. With arms obtained in Peru, General Freire made a descent upon the island of Chiloë, but the rebellion was quickly suppressed, war declared against Santa Cruz, and the Peruvian fleet surprised and seized. While the army of invasion was waiting for the order to embark a few companies engaged in a mutiny which brought about a horrible tragedy. Portales had come to the camp to watch the preparations. The mutineers seized him as hostage, and fleeing to the interior carried him along locked in a closed carriage. In the middle of the winter night they encountered a detachment of government troops, and with the first volley the guards stopped the carriage. A man got out, walked unflinchingly to the side of the road, a half dozen shots rang out in the still air, and he fell. When the first light of dawn illumined the field, the victorious national guards found a body lying pierced by four bullets—it was Portales. But his work had been too thoroughly done for even his own death to affect it. He had found his country feeble and divided, torn by feud and faction; he left her prosperous, united, possessing surplus vitality for a successful foreign war. Prieto and the conservatives were not shaken; the expedition to Peru proceeded, and though the first failed, the second won the battle of Yungay, overthrew Santa Cruz, and made Chile the dominant power on the Pacific coast.
At the end of his two terms of five years each, Prieto was succeeded by General Bulnes, the hero of the war. Foreign commerce was increasing by leaps and bounds; the growth of the customs revenues put government finances on a sound footing; the expenses of the war against Santa Cruz had been provided for out of current income. William Wheelwright had established the first steamship line on the Pacific. The political policy of Bulnes was as repressive toward the liberals as his predecessor's. However, education and literary activity were encouraged; a new university was inaugurated at Santiago in 1843. The opera and the drama flourished, and society took on a more intellectual and cosmopolitan tone. Even religious doctrine and the relations of Church and State were discussed with considerable freedom and warmth, and everywhere were signs of an awakening—a flowering out of the industrial, commercial, and intellectual life of the nation. German colonists were induced to settle in the forested valleys and mountains of the South, and that part of Chile became and has remained more Teutonic than Latin. The discovery of gold in California opened a market for Chilean wheat and gave a fresh impetus to commerce and agriculture, while the mines of Copiapo began to yield their inexhaustible wealth.
Bulnes was re-elected without opposition in 1846, but a new Chile had grown up in the fifteen years of peaceful order. Though the old liberals had disappeared, a new party had arisen all the more formidable because its principles were moderate and it sought not dictatorships, military government, or federalism, but only administrative reforms, such as restraining the clergy and widening the suffrage. By 1849 the liberals had a majority in congress and an agitated session ensued. The conservative president was pushed into an attitude of uncompromising resistance to the liberal demands. Manuel Montt, the intellectual leader of the conservatives, a strong and ambitious man, who was known to have the courage and firmness to maintain himself against odds, was selected as Bulnes' successor. His elevation in the spring of 1851 was followed by an armed outbreak, which the government troops suppressed, but in September the revolution flamed forth with redoubled fury.
From Concepcion, the liberal headquarters, marched an army which gained several victories and even threatened the capital. But the conservatives rallied and in December the issue was decided by the bloody battle of Loncomilla. In Chile, a narrow plain shut in between the Andes and the sea, losers cannot hide; a single encounter in force is enough; civil wars cannot be prolonged in remote provinces or by the flight of the defeated to inaccessible deserts. Though the destruction of life and property had been frightful—four thousand Chileans perishing and commerce and industry being paralysed for the moment—peace was immediately re-established and the nation rapidly recovered. A general amnesty buried the doings of the insurgents in oblivion, and former liberals were welcomed as members of the party which Montt and Varas, his able minister, organised. Though their faces were set against political innovations they adopted many important administrative reforms. The admirable civil code prepared by Bello was given to the country, replacing the complicated and confusing mass of old Spanish laws by clear and systematic legislation. The tariff was lowered and differential duties as between foreign countries were abolished. Commercial courts were installed, decimal coinage adopted, church tithes converted into a moderate fixed tax, treaties of commerce and amity negotiated with the great commercial nations, missions established among the Araucanians, and public libraries and schools were multiplied.
On the other hand, Montt and Varas relentlessly pursued a policy of centralisation, subjecting even the affairs of the municipalities to the control of the Santiago bureaucracy. Re-elected as a matter of course in 1856, Montt's second term was even more intransigent than his first. Many leading liberals were driven from the country, and minor insurrections broke out more than once, only to be sternly suppressed. The landed aristocracy had, however, ceased to be unanimous against concessions; its more progressive members belonged now to the liberal party; and the "montt-varistas" in congress were compelled to ally themselves now with the clericals, now with the liberals, in order to secure a working majority. In 1858 Montt came to an open rupture with congress because it insisted on passing a law permitting the return of his banished political enemies. Meanwhile he had alienated the clergy by compelling the ecclesiastical authorities to submit to the decisions of the civil tribunals, and some conservatives united with the liberals against him in the elections in the fall of 1858. His measures became arbitrary and oppressive. Newspapers were suppressed, meetings dispersed, and agitators imprisoned. At the end of the year a great meeting was called at the capital to promote a reform of the Constitution. The government forbade it as a menace to public order, and the dissatisfaction was so wide-spread that Montt proclaimed martial law.
The liberals in the southern and northern provinces simultaneously rose in rebellion and for four months civil war raged furiously. Gallo, a young, rich, and powerful leader, was at the head of the insurrection in the North and at first he defeated the government forces and occupied Coquimbo. But his hopes were crushed by the news that the southern liberals advancing from Concepcion had been repulsed at Chillan, enabling Montt to concentrate the whole army against him. Four thousand regulars routed the two thousand men who followed Gallo, and the remnants fled across the Argentine border. Defeated and banished, the liberals in reality had won. The seriousness of the rebellion had convinced the aristocracy that concessions must be made or a renewal of the conflict would be inevitable. Montt did not seek a re-election, and it was necessary to unite on some man of high personal prestige, and of distinguished family, who had remained neutral in the recent struggle. Such a one was found in Perez, who accordingly received the unanimous vote of the electoral college and was inaugurated in 1861. That the new president's policy would be one of reconciliation and compromise was soon made evident by his procuring the passage of a law granting amnesty for political offences. A coalition of moderate liberals and conservatives threw Montt and Varas with their party of "nationalists" into opposition along with the radicals or "reds" under the leadership of Gallo. The curious spectacle was presented of two sets of men, united in an alliance against the administration, who only two years before had been fighting in the field, and who now professed the most radically divergent political opinions. Fierce parliamentary struggles ensued, but they were confined to the floor of congress and to changes in the ministry.
The country had now recovered from the commercial panic of the fifties and from the devastations of the brief civil war, and proceeded again on the even tenor of its prosperous commercial way. The railroad from Valparaiso to Santiago was completed in 1863; lines were extended up and down the great central valleys; the telegraph system was enlarged; Chilean capitalists began to push up the desert northern coast to engage in the guano business; the German immigration to southern Chile continued and European colonisation was fostered. Indeed, no South American country has incorporated such a large proportion of North European blood; and British, German, and French names are common not only in commerce and industry, but also in the political, naval, and military services—witness Mackenna, O'Higgins, Beauchef, Godoy, Montt, Walker, Edwards, MacIver, Tupper, Prat, Larrain, MacClure, Koenig, Mathieu, Stuven, Ross, Marchant, Cumming, Day, Stephan, and a hundred others.
In 1865 a war with Spain interrupted domestic progress, political as well as commercial. Engaged in a dispute with Peru, the Spanish government had sent an overwhelming fleet to enforce its demands, and seized the Chincha Islands. The Spanish admiral was reported to have justified this high-handed act upon the ground that Peru was still subject to Spain. If this was true of the one country it was of the other, and the Chileans believed their territorial integrity and even their independence menaced. Government and people manifested an active sympathy with Peru; Peruvian vessels were allowed to coal; newspapers were filled with abuse of Spain; and a riot occurred in front of the Spanish legation. In September, 1865, the Spanish fleet sailed into Valparaiso Bay and its admiral presented an ultimatum. Four days were given for a satisfactory explanation, an apology, and a salute to the Spanish flag. Failing this he would blockade the coast and procure indemnification by force. The Chilean government rejected the humiliating proposition; the blockade was established, and the administration, backed by the enthusiastic approval of the whole country, refused to make any concessions, though Chile's fleet consisted of one small vessel and her ports were at the enemy's mercy. The single Chilean steamer succeeded in capturing a Spanish gunboat, which so humiliated the admiral that he committed suicide, and when, in March, 1866, Chile refused even to disclaim an intention of insulting Spain, or to exchange salutes, the Spaniards proceeded to bombard Valparaiso. The town was totally without defences and open to cannon fire; ten millions of property were destroyed in the three hours and a half that the cannonading lasted, nine-tenths of it being on the water-front and belonging to foreign merchants. The Spanish fleet then withdrew, although the original question remained exactly as at the outset.
VIEW OF VALPARAISO.
An indirect result of the common danger of the Pacific nations was an agreement in 1866 between Chile and Bolivia as to their boundary on the coast. The line was fixed at the 24th degree, but Chileans were allowed to continue to exploit guano and nitrate as far north as the 23d—an arrangement which gave their country substantial claims in a region which shortly proved a marvellous producer of ready money. The German colonisation in the South continued on an increasing scale during the late sixties; free land was given to immigrants and their passage paid. The Araucanians, resenting the influx of whites so near their own territory, began to make trouble, and a war went on through 1868, 1869, and 1870, which finally resulted in their suing for peace. A line of forts kept them in order and they ceased to be a disturbing factor in Chilean affairs.
Perez had been re-elected in 1866, and his second term marks the beginning of a new era in Chilean politics. The dynamic elements had finally become stronger than the static, and the pressure for amendments to the Constitution could no longer be resisted. But in the forty years since Portales had fixed the form of the government in its aristocratic mould, political traditions had hardened into habits. No really radical changes had any serious chance of success. A measure forbidding the president to be re-elected was passed, and a desperate fight made to extend the suffrage to all who could read and write. Though favoured by President Perez the last failed to carry, and the most the liberals could obtain was a law reducing the property qualification.
The election in 1871 was warmly contested. The advanced liberals pressed hard on the conservatives, who resisted further changes desperately. The latter united with the moderate liberals upon Errazuriz as presidential candidate to succeed Perez, and receiving the support of the outgoing administration he was elected. At first the elements who had elected him controlled a majority in congress, but the aggressiveness of the liberals and rival ambitions in the government coalition soon overthrew the reactionary ministry. Errazuriz changed as congress did and soon found himself pushing liberal reforms. The great issue was the amenability of the clergy to the civil tribunals. Though fifteen years previously President Montt had compelled the reinstatement of two church dignitaries deprived of their places by the archbishop, the clergy had nevertheless persisted in their claims. The liberals now insisted on the adoption of a criminal code which would leave no doubt, and amid bitter opposition it was passed. The clericals were further outraged by concessions as to Protestant worship and the obligatory teaching of the Catholic religion in the state colleges. Though the bill establishing civil marriage failed, the anti-clerical movement went so far that the old-line conservatives withdrew in disgust from the alliance which had existed between them and the moderate liberals since the revolt against Montt. Thenceforth the conservative party ceased to be an important factor, and the predominant liberals divided into factions who intrigued among themselves to organise working congressional majorities, which supported ministries and controlled patronage. Political reform went on with increasing momentum. To curb the control of elections which the ministry in power exercised through the local officers who made up the voting lists, minority representation was provided for, but only after the moderates had forced the radicals to a compromise, which exempted presidential and senatorial elections.
Meanwhile material prosperity was steadily increasing and population growing at the rate of one and a half per cent. a year. Coal mines had been discovered in southern Chile, railroad building continued, and the finding of the rich Caracoles silver mines in 1870, lying near the northern limit of the jointly occupied territory, not only opened up vistas of wealth, but brought to the front the troublesome question of the Bolivian boundary. Peru became alarmed at Chile's rapid progress in the nitrate and guano business, Bolivia feared aggressions on the part of her powerful neighbour, and in 1872 these two powers entered into a defensive alliance intended to protect their joint interests on the Pacific coast. The reaction inevitably consequent on rapid commercial expansion came in the middle of Errazuriz' term, and was aggravated by a fall in the prices of Chilean exports caused by the world panic of 1873. The already burdened government finances quickly felt the strain; outgo exceeded income, and it was necessary to reduce expenses. Happily the debt, though large, was not excessive. Chile had gone in for no such reckless carnival of borrowing as Peru and the Argentine, and her bonds had been opportunely refunded at a low rate of interest.
As the time for the election approached the radical liberals put forward Mackenna on a programme which included not only religious freedom in its widest sense, the extension of the common schools, and the abolition of the tobacco monopoly, but also railways and internal improvements enough to bankrupt the treasury. The moderate liberals were opposed to Mackenna and his programme, so the party split. The convention of moderates was at first unable to agree on a candidate, but on a second attempt Anibal Pinto was nominated. Favoured by the outgoing administration, his election was a foregone conclusion.
By this time the dispute with the Argentine over the possession of the southern extremity of the continent had become acute, and public feeling in both countries had risen to a height perilous to the maintenance of peace. The only boundary treaty between Chile and Argentina—that of 1856—provided that the limits should be as they had been during colonial times, but these were not certain because throughout the Spanish occupation the territory now disputed had been uninhabited, and neither the viceroy of Buenos Aires nor the captains-general of Chile had concerned themselves about it. Since independence Chile had always claimed to the Andes on the east and to Cape Horn on the south, including the region about the Straits of Magellan over to the Atlantic side. As early as 1843 she had established a post at the eastern end of the straits, and Argentina at first did not seriously dispute her possession. In 1870 guano was discovered in the region, and when Chile promptly proceeded to treat it as her own the Argentine government protested. For ten years the two countries bickered, but with the Peruvian war impending Chile thought it wiser to make some concessions, and the dispute was finally settled by a treaty in 1881 by which the territory was divided, Chile getting the more valuable part with the control of both ends of the straits, although this great interoceanic waterway was declared neutral and no fortifications may be erected there.
