MID-CONTINENT country though she is, Bolivia realizes the value to her of the Panama Canal. For a great many years the larger part of her exports must be ores and metals. The mineral regions lie chiefly on the Pacific side of the Royal or Oriental Andes. A portion of the output in the southern district may find its way profitably down through Argentina, but the overwhelming bulk of the mineral products will have the shortest transit, and therefore the cheapest outlet by the West Coast, through Antofagasta, Arica, and Mollendo, all within the waterway radius. This also will be the route for the machinery and the merchandise imported.
The future of Bolivia is so intensely an industrial one, that the public men who came into power when General Pando became President keenly appreciated that they must secure the means of internal development. This could be fostered only by building railways. In relation to the general subject of rail communication and transportation the Bolivian plans fit intimately with the Intercontinental or Pan-American railroad idea. To have a complete national system of railways it is essential that there shall be a through trunk line from Lake Titicaca to Argentina, though the branches toward the Pacific themselves partake of the nature of main lines. In the political aspect the motive is to secure such domestic progress as in time will enable Bolivia to obtain a seaport of her own. Yet a patriotic policy of forethought for all contingencies forbids her to be dependent entirely on the Pacific outlet. Out of this feeling grew not only the determination to complete the connection with the Argentine system, but also the purpose of combining railroad and water transportation, so that the great river basins of the northeastern region shall have through communication with the capital and with the interior of the country, and afford an Atlantic outlet by means of Villa Bella and the Amazon River.
In this manner Bolivia helps to maintain her independence and to free herself from too heavily leaning on her Pacific coast neighbors. Nevertheless, geography decrees that her earlier stages of development for a quarter of a century, perhaps for half a century, shall be to obtain the fullest advantage of the extension of the Panama Canal zone along the West Coast.
The political, geographical, and economic conditions which, in the view of President Montes and the progressive public men of Bolivia, are necessary for the development of the nation, involve the construction of railway lines somewhat as follows:
1. Viacha to Oruro.
2. Uyuni to Tupiza and Quiaca.
3. Oruro to Cochabamba.
4. Cochabamba to the Chimoré River.
5. Chimoré to Santa Cruz.
6. Uyuni or Sevaruyo to Potosi.