The same reflection may be made as regards the other Latin American States, with a word of warning to directors and shareholders. The native miners are a hardy and often turbulent race. If they were not hardy they would not be miners, and if they were not headstrong they would not be likely to undertake the onerous and dangerous livelihood of the mines. These folk are, as regards "labour" ideas, mostly ignorant and unorganized at present. Directly they learn their power, and directly some greater amount of education filters in among them—accompanied, as is ever the case, by socialistic or even anarchic ideas—they will begin to demand their "rights." (The nitrate-workers in Chile, for example). Such ideas might spread very rapidly among these impressionable folk, and they would be likely to stop at nothing once the spark of disorder were kindled, even to Bolshevism of the brown race. Let us be wise in time and study the methods, before too late, by which their lot may be improved and their intelligence better directed under a wider spirit of economic instruction and justice. We may not like to face these eventualities, but that will not influence the march of events.
The same holds good with every form of foreign investment in Latin America—railways, plantations and all else. So I would venture to say, if we expect always to draw dividends from our investments in Spanish America, let us wisely have more regard to the social and economic status of the worker. How, practically, that is to be done is a question of our own intelligence. Perhaps some advisory body might be instituted in London, financed by the large British interests in Latin America, such as would devote itself to the study of the conditions of life surrounding the workers in those lands, or at least as regards their own employees. I offer this suggestion on behalf of the poorer folk of these lands. They generally look to the "Ingles" as a person of influence—one, moreover, whose pockets are always, they imagine, lined with silver! In their way these folk believe that noblesse oblige (in their own term for that concept) is a universal axiom of the Englishman, and there is something almost pathetic in this faith in a foreigner. Let us beware that by negligence or greed we do not forfeit this esteem. I offer the suggestion also as a contributory safeguard to British investment here.
Apart from the attitude of the individual worker in these communities in relation to foreign capital, we shall be well advised to keep in touch with the attitude not only of the workers as a whole but of the Governments which control national affairs. Of late there have been certain indications that a policy of antagonism towards foreign capital and enterprises is growing up. It has been very marked in Mexico, but in Argentina, a much more advanced community, and in the Brazilian States it is at times disquieting. It is not so much antagonism, however, as a feeling of dissatisfaction that the earnings from national or public works should go to foreign shareholders. The Argentine railways of late years have felt a good deal this disturbing element; as also the burden of numerous strikes. British capital was the pioneer in building railways in the republic, and has conferred enormous benefit upon it. More than 15,000 miles of line are owned by British companies, or three times as much as the remaining mileage, which is French and national mainly. Whilst these railways are, it is generally conceded, worked and controlled as economically and efficiently as ever, it cannot be said that they are undertakings so profitable as should cause envious eyes to be cast upon them. For the past few years the average net return of these British-owned railways in Argentina has not exceeded the modest amount of three and a half per cent. This is a low return, especially for Argentina, where two or three times the yield is obtained on ordinary safe mortgages on houses and land. The British-owned banks in South America may yield twenty per cent. profit. Yet voices arise in the land, asking why the transport of the country should be conducted for the interests of foreign shareholders, and begin to demand a larger share. A cry of this kind soon becomes general, and when a government has come into power on the strength of popular promises—and to obtain votes and power this condition arises now in South America, as in all other lands—it has to attempt to carry out its promises, and the line of least resistance here is sometimes the foreign corporation. There is one simple remedy which discontented governments and folk here could apply—in purchasing for themselves the shares of the railway companies in the open market, but it does not appear that this legitimate operation is much indulged in.
With regard to the native labour, it is to be recollected that there are few (or no) laws to safeguard it from exploitation by the employer. It is only just beginning to learn how to combine in its own interest. As I have shown in these pages, it is in many instances and throughout the whole region often over-exploited. The upper-class employer, the Spanish American, does not lack kindliness and charity, but it is contrary to his custom and outlook to think much of the labourer. The Spaniard and the Portuguese have been oppressive in this connexion throughout history.
Strikes in Argentina and Uruguay have of late become very bitter in character, and bloodshed generally occurs. Trains have been derailed and passengers and drivers fired upon. It is to be recollected that labour is not necessarily all of the native stock, but is supplemented by the flow from turbulent Spanish and Italian sources. The poor Iberian or Calabrian comes over with a sense of wrong against society, which in his own lands he often has good reason to nourish, and which he cannot throw aside on this new soil as readily as he may the picturesque native costume of his fatherland. In this respect we might indeed say—Coelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt. The great estuary of the River Plate receives in its haven many a discontented emigrant, many an agitator from the Latin lands of Europe, whose social defects, national and individual, by a curious combination of circumstance, many an English home—holder of shares in Argentine and Brazilian railways—is, in a sense, called upon to expiate!
There can be little doubt, moreover, that the reins of power in certain South American States tend to fall more and more into the hands of politicians of a very democratic type—not to say socialistic—and as the education of the "proletariat" increases this element is likely to increase. The Cabinet formed of "doctors," of the upper and select strata of society, men of distinguished type—but often out of touch and indeed sympathy with the masses of their poorer countrymen—and of military men, also of the upper strata, is likely to be more and more diluted with the ruder element who bears, sincerely or for political purposes, the social wrongs of his constituents as his creed. In brief, we may expect to see in Latin America a wave of that unrest which now has submerged Russia, perhaps Germany, and which in some degree threatens every land. Let us hope that, before it is too late, the channels of human intelligence will flow with a true spirit of humanity and the milk of human kindness and order. But the general world-outlook is not encouraging, and no doubt there is yet to be bitter experience in these lands of Cancer and Capricorn, of Central and South America, in the development of their social affairs.
The relations of foreigners with the Latin American people opens a wide field of discussion, upon which we may lightly touch.
The social culture of these communities in the past has been most greatly influenced by French ideas, and France is still the ideal nation. It may be that France, by reason of her apostasy and her expulsion of the religious orders from her shores in recent time, has lost prestige however.
The relations of the Americans of the United States with the people of Latin America present a number of interesting conditions and problems. The two types of people and their civilizations differ from each other in every respect, yet, neighbours on the same continent and twin-continent, they are and in the future will be more and more thrown into contact with each other. The situation is such as that which would arise if England and Spain or England and France found themselves with a common frontier, that of only a small river, or the imaginary one of a parallel of latitude between them. This is exemplified on the Mexico-United States border, where the two races, the Spanish American and the Anglo-Saxon American—if that term may be correctly applied to the people of the United States—come into contact but do not assimilate.
The first problem is one of nomenclature. The people of the United States have arrogated to themselves the name of "Americans," although, of course, this belongs equally to all inhabitants of the New World. The Latin Americans do not necessarily agree with the pretension, and have among themselves applied the term Norteamericanos to their northern neighbours—that is, "North Americans." This alternates with the term Yanquis, the hispanicized form of the soubriquet "Yankee," of doubtful origin; not, however, necessarily used in a derogatory fashion, but familiarly. The word gringo is also a common term applied to the Americans; not, however, to them alone, but to any foreigner not of Latin race. The origin of this term is obscure, and it cannot be said to be a flattering designation. The word is often meant, however, as describing a person whose hair and eyes are not dark, contrasting thus with the general type of the Latin American. Blue eyes and blonde hair are essentially gringo.