Politically considered, the enterprise will be of vast benefit to Bolivia, for her population will find employment in the impetus given to commerce, and will consequently become less turbulent, as revolutions will decrease commensurately with the interest that each one will find in their increasing prosperity. A bond of unity will also be created for Bolivia, with her powerful neighbour Brazil, whereby she will be rendered more secure from the encroachments of the republics of the Pacific seaboard.
The results, financially considered, will be, that a trade, equal, if not superior, to that now carried on through the Peruvian towns of Tacna and Arica, will be created on the eastern side of the republic; and from the custom’s receipts of this trade, Bolivia would have far more than sufficient to keep up the service of, and rapidly pay off, both her internal and external debts. Taking the year 1873 as a guide, we find that the imports through the port of Arica amounted to £1,422,369, and the exports to £860,607. Of these figures, three-fourths of the imports, or £1,066,766, and £842,345 of the exports, fairly belong to Bolivia, making a total of £1,909,121 in value of Bolivian commerce that passes through Peru. The duties arising from this trade may reasonably be averaged at twenty per cent. of the gross value, so that Bolivia annually affords Peru a rental of more than £381,000, out of which she magnanimously grants Bolivia a subsidy of £81,000. That Bolivian commerce is not decreasing is proved by the fact that the exports of Arica for 1874 exceeded those of 1873 by nearly a million hard dollars, or about £200,000. These statistics sufficiently account for the opposition offered by the parties interested in the above trade to the opening-up of the Amazonian trade-route. ([See Appendix, p. 400.])
Bolivia is generally supposed to have rather more than 2,750,000 inhabitants; the above figures give, therefore, an average trade of about 14s. per head per annum, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that a similar amount of trade will soon be carried over the Madeira and Mamoré Railway. The loan of 1872 demands an annual service for interest and sinking fund of £136,000, and the gradual payment of the other debts of the country would require about £120,000 more. This total requirement of £256,000 would, in a very few years, be provided by the custom’s duties collected on the eastern route, for the amount is not equal to three-fourths of the duties shown to be received by Peru from Bolivian commerce.
Bolivia would still have the Peruvian subsidy, the profits received from sale of the nitrates and guano of the desert of Atacama and islands near the Pacific coast. These sources of revenue, together with the departmental rentals, would more than suffice for the general government expenses and the improvement of her internal means of communication. It is not, therefore, too much to say that the realization of the Madeira and Mamoré Railway may be made the means of materially changing and improving the present deplorable financial and political situation of the republic. It is, however, hopeless to expect that the men in power should have sufficient foresight or courage to enable them to foster such an important and promising scheme of progress for their country. No, the policy of the so-called statesmen of Bolivia is the short-sighted one of self-interest, and because the realization of Colonel Church’s enterprises would not be attended by immediate pecuniary advantages to themselves, they have of late years placed every possible impediment in his way. Fortunately for the masses of the population, Colonel Church has proved himself to be of sterner and honester metal than Bolivian statesmen are made of, and has refused bribes innumerable, offered him with the view of tempting him to abandon his enterprise, and leave the Bolivian people to the mercies of their gaolers of the Pacific seaboard; and so the country will, in spite of its leading men, probably receive the immense benefit of communication with Europe by the Amazon River within a reasonable time. I can only hope that Colonel Church may be spared to a long life, during which he may reap the due reward of his steadfastness of purpose and integrity of motives, by seeing the development of the country, which will then hail him as its best and truest friend since the days of the great liberator Simon Bolivar, who may be said to have given it independence or birth, while Colonel Church will have given it lungs, through which to breath the invigorating stimulus of intercourse with the civilization of Europe.
The labours of a Bolivian Congress generally last about sixty days, and for the rest of the year the president and his ministers reign supreme. The closing of the house is celebrated by a procession of the ministers, who, led by the president, and escorted by a body-guard of soldiers, go from the Casa del Gobierno to the Sala del Congreso, where they are received by the members, standing and uncovered. By the way, Bolivian deputies, though representatives of a land of liberty, are not allowed, as our members are, to wear their hats in the House, but have to leave them in the lobby. The president, arrayed in a gorgeous uniform of dark blue, embroidered heavily with gold lace, begirt with a tricoloured scarf round his waist, with a tricoloured plume in his cocked hat, gives the spectator a curious notion of republican simplicity. On every state occasion the president is immediately preceded by the national flag, which is, perhaps, the prettiest flag to be found (barring, of course, our own Union-Jack). It is composed of three colours, yellow, red, and green, arranged in three wide parallel bars; and I have heard it said, that the three colours were adopted to typify the green earth, and the rising and the setting sun, the founders of the republic wishing their Indian population to believe that their country included the whole of the world.
PRESIDENT FRIAS.
(From a photograph taken at Cochabamba.)