The considerable element of British whose homes or occupations are in Latin America followed the varying fortunes of the war with eagerness, for the name and fame of England is dear to these exiled sons. Their hearts were broken with the Tarapacá disaster to the British squadron, but resuscitated by the great victory of the Falkland Isles. It must not be forgotten that they, in considerable number, left their homes and occupations and came to England as volunteers early in the war. They were not grouped together as a separate force, being of so scattered an origin. But the King approved a special badge for them, and England should be grateful for their noble effort—we trust she was and is!
The effect of the war upon the Latin American States—whilst it cut off supplies at first of European manufactured goods and disorganized exchange and currency—was to cause an enormous demand for their raw materials, with corresponding increase of wealth. Even the first-named condition was a benefit in disguise, causing a development of home manufacture.
German trade in South America, for the time being, was ruined—a severe blow—a result of the British blockade. British and French trade of course suffered temporarily. The trade of the United States, on the other hand, increased: American goods replaced European, and it seemed at one time that the change might be permanent; but it was found that their goods were inferior, or at any rate less acceptable, than those of the older exporters. However, new horizons—trade, banking and so forth—opened in Latin America for the United States.
It cannot be said that the two American peoples know very much of each other. The aloofness is partly from geographical, partly from racial causes. Enormous distances separate their respective principal centres of life. New York and the city of Mexico, for example, are several thousand miles apart, although linked by more than one railway system. Huge deserts intervene, those dreadful wildernesses of Northern Mexico, on whose existence, indeed, an early president of Mexico, who distrusted the northern neighbour, was wont to congratulate his country, summing up the sentiment in his aphorism of "Between weakness and strength—the Desert!" As for communication by sea, it may be recollected that Europe is more accessible to, for example, Brazil and Argentina, than is New York. On the Pacific side of the continent the greater part of a hemisphere intervenes between the large centres of population of North and South America. From San Francisco, or other great seaports, to Callao and Valparaiso the steamer voyage occupies far more time than is necessary to cross the Atlantic. The people of Peru and Chile or Ecuador, and the people of California or Oregon are little more than names to each other, inhabitants of another world. Great stretches of undeveloped territory intervene, and through communication by rail has not yet been established, as the Pan-American Railway remains still on the lap of the future.
Among those nations which in the future may be reckoned upon as likely to display a desire for closer relations with Spanish America are the Chinese and the Japanese. The Mongolians seem to have—as before remarked—some affinity with the American Indian race, possibly by reason of some very ancient kinship or common ancestry, for it is held by ethnologists that America may have been very early peopled by Mongolians. In Peru, for example, the Chinaman readily establishes himself in business in the smaller villages (and often surrounds himself with several wives or female companions from among the Indian women). The Japanese have long cast eyes upon the upper reaches of the Amazon basin, or Montaña, of Peru and Brazil, for purposes of settlement and industry, and of late a company from Nippon has acquired a large tract of land there, with such an object. These folk are not unwelcome, or not so far, by the South Americans, who are desirous of seeing these vast and sparsely inhabited regions brought to life.
This possibility of a modern Mongolian "invasion" into the heart of South America is one which may take on greater importance in the future.
In general terms, however, it must be recollected that the Pacific Ocean is vast and wide. There is, nevertheless, a school of thought arising of late which affects to believe that the Pacific Ocean is destined to become the centre of the world's commercial activity. As this centre changed, they say, from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, so will it change from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They regard the "basin" of the Pacific as a sort of entity, and look for enormous developments in this respect, of fleets bearing travellers and merchandise, of great interchange of products and so forth.
Whilst this view may be well-founded, I venture to think that certain natural factors have not been sufficiently taken into account. There is, first, the condition of enormous width from the Asiatic to the American shore; second, it is not sufficiently understood that this American shore, whether in North or South America, is in the nature of a narrow strip of land greatly cut off from the interior of the continents by vast mountain ranges and deserts. In North America the Sierra Nevadas and the Great American Desert have to be crossed between California and the eastern and central part of the United States, and the Rocky Mountains in Oregon and British Columbia, whilst in Mexico the Western Sierra Madre offers a similar obstacle. In South America, as we have seen, the Andes is a perfect mountain wall, cutting off the interior absolutely from the narrow and comparatively infertile Pacific littoral. The natural outlet of the vast area of South America is to the east; it falls to the Atlantic, not to the Pacific. Where, then, are the people and the products that would give rise to so great a movement upon the Pacific Ocean?
Lastly, I am inclined to doubt (although I may be in error) whether the future of the world is to show a vast increase in overseas trade and trafficking such as would change its centre of gravity in this respect. There are factors against such—as have been discussed in the chapter dealing with trade; factors of the natural development of self-supply, as against import of commodities, factors of the huge and increasing cost of transport, scarcity of fuel and so forth. Moreover, what does Asia want from America, or America from Asia? Both continents produce the things of the temperate and the tropic zones; both are capable of manufacturing the finished goods which they require.
Taking all these matters into consideration, it may be doubted if the Pacific Ocean is to attain to the great importance which some have imagined for it, although doubtless its traffic will increase.