Panama to Patagonia

by Charles M. Pepper

“Christ of the Andes”

Chilean foreign commerce reaches to higher levels with each year. Naturally the nitrates form the bulk of the exports, and assure a balance of trade in favor of Chile. On this account, by England and Germany an advantage is maintained; but since the United States is not a large consumer of the saltpetre, the balance of trade is in its favor. For the ten years from 1895 to 1904 inclusive, the United States products imported into Chile aggregated $41,610,000, while her exports to the United States amounted to $26,100,000.[15] Farm implements, builders’ hardware, machinery, and mineral oils composed the larger part of the shipments.

15 The figures are on the basis of Chilean export and import valuations. The United States Treasury statistics place a higher value on the imports from Chile, chiefly nitrates.

This commerce is likely to grow to much larger proportions in the degree that railway building, municipal improvements, and harbor works are carried forward by Chile. A government agent who visited Europe and North America in 1905 in connection with contracts which were to be let, suggested to Pittsburg manufacturers the formation of a company that should give special attention to iron and steel products, railway and road supplies, for the Chilean market. The commerce is certain to grow after the Canal is constructed, because the agricultural machinery, mineral oils, and other products of which Chile is a heavy importer, will best be furnished by the United States, more especially in view of the cheapened transportation. An American bank in Valparaiso, in order to make the United States trade independent of English banking relations, is one of the probabilities of the future.

Chile’s dependence on the sea makes foreign trade a vital element of her growth and prosperity. She has an encouraging future in the development of her own shipping. With the hardy marine population of the Chiloe Archipelago and the other seafaring population of the coast as the basis, her advantage on the Pacific is manifest. She will have in the future a much larger share in the coast-carrying trade which will result from the Panama Canal. Efforts to run Chilean vessels as far as San Francisco failed a few years ago, because of obstacles which competitors were enabled to throw in the way. This was a temporary check. The shipping along the coast as far as Vancouver will not always be denied her, but after the Canal is opened there will be a more pronounced advantage in passing through it to the Atlantic, and the flag of the Chilean merchant marine will be seen in New Orleans and New York.

The existing navigation has a substantial base for developing the maritime commercial movement. In a recent year the number of sailing-vessels calling at the Chilean ports was 549, and the total registry of these vessels was 797,000 tons. Most of them were British, the number being 302, and the tonnage 447,000. After that came Germany, with 92 ships and 146,000 tonnage. The United States sailing-ships numbered 17, and their aggregate tonnage was 15,000. Chile had the same number, but with a tonnage of 13,000.

The steamships numbered 1,255, with a total registry tonnage of 2,741,000. Of these Great Britain contributed 685, whose total tonnage was 1,477,000; Germany, 381, with a tonnage of 946,000; the United States, 15, with 39,000; and Chile 149, with a tonnage of 224,000. The Chilean government pays a small subsidy to the companies which carry the mails along the coast and to and from Panama. The Chilean merchant marine consists of 136 vessels, with a total registry of 67,936 tons. Next to Chile herself, the greatest volume of the coast trading is done by ships under the English flag.

The population of Chile is between 3,000,000 and 3,100,000. In 1796 an enumeration showed 350,000 inhabitants. In 1810, almost at the threshold of the struggle for independence from Spain, the number was 500,000. In 1866 it was estimated at 2,000,000. The census of 1895, which was taken with care, gave 2,712,000 inhabitants, nearly equally divided between town and country. The urban population was 1,250,000, and the rural 1,472,000.

Measures for adding to the number of inhabitants by means of colonization and other forms of stimulated immigration have not given very encouraging results. The public men and political economists who analyze the causes which prevent the natural increase of population from being normal, also find that the artificial propagation is unsatisfactory. During the ten years ending in 1902 the government spent $100,000, Chilean money, a year in its colonization efforts, and maintained an agency in Paris. The result of that work and the expenditure of half a million dollars was the arrival of 7,000 persons, some of whom went back and many of whom drifted to other countries. During the same period the Manufacturers’ Association, the Fomento de Fabrica, secured 2,000 individuals. That is to say, in ten years government agency and private enterprise did not succeed in bringing 10,000 permanent immigrants to Chile.

Yet colonies have not always been failures. The German revolutionists of 1848 who settled around Valdivia, Osorno, and Lake Llanquihue, took root and flourished. With their tanneries and breweries they have made Valdivia the industrial centre that it is. After the war with Peru the Colonial Department sought to establish frontier colonists on the lands south of the river Bio-bio and also in the archipelago of Chiloe, where cereals grow in spite of the ceaseless rain. It is doubtful if large groups of foreigners ever can be settled permanently among those islands, but on the mainland there is no reason why colonization should not succeed. The forest clearings in the South and the opportunities for sheep-raising and wool-growing should induce an appreciable immigration in those localities.