At the same time, there is seen in South America the dawn of a new life which moves its people, as they have never been moved before, with the spirit of industrial and commercial progress.
At a banquet that was given last winter to a great and distinguished man, Lord Grey, Governor-General of Canada, he said: "The nineteenth century was the century of the United States; the twentieth century will be the century of Canada." I should feel surer as a prophet if I were to say: "The twentieth century will be the century of South America." I believe, with him, in the great development of Canada; but just as the nineteenth century was the century of phenomenal development in North America, I believe that no student can help seeing that the twentieth century will be the century of phenomenal development in South America.
And so our countries will be face to face in a new attitude. We cannot longer remain strangers to each other; our relations must be those of intimacy, and this is the time to say that our relations will be those of friendship.
On the other hand, before long the construction of the canal across the Isthmus of Panama, which will fulfill the dreams of the early navigators, which will accomplish the work projected for centuries, will at last be completed, while the men who are today active in the business of both countries are still on the field of action.
This, therefore, is the moment to safeguard harmony in the relations between the two nations.
I do not believe that any one can say what changes the opening of the Panama Canal will bring in the affairs of the world; but we do know that great changes in the commercial routes of the world have changed the course of history, and no one can doubt that the creation of a waterway that will put the Pacific coast of South America in close touch with the Atlantic coast of North America must be a factor of incalculable importance in determining the affairs of the western hemisphere and promoting our relations of intimacy and friendship.
Now, at this moment, at the beginning of this great commercial and industrial awakening—I say at the beginning, notwithstanding all that you have already done, because I believe you have only begun to realize the great work you have before you—at this moment there falls on you this terrible misfortune, one of those warnings that at times God sends to his people to show them how weak they are in his hands—a misfortune because of which the entire world mourns with you. But I believe—I know—that the air of these mountains and of these shores, which in another time gave its spirit to the proud and indomitable Arucanian race, has given to the people of Chile the vigor with which to rise up from the ashes of Valparaiso and with which to make out of the misfortune of today the incentive for great deeds tomorrow. And in this era of friendship, when peaceful immigration has replaced armed invasions, when the free exchange of capital and the international ownership of industrial and commercial enterprises, of manufactures, of mines, have replaced rapine and plunder—in this era of commercial conquest and industrial acquisition, of more frequent intercourse among men, of more intimate knowledge and better understanding, there has come to you in this your great misfortune the friendship and the sympathy of the world.
In truth, our friends who sleep the last sleep there in Valparaiso have brought to their country a possession of greater value than was ever won by the soldier on the battlefield.
As I said to you yesterday, Mr. President, I feared that under the present sad circumstances I might be intruding upon you; should I not rather feel that the words of friendship of which I am the bearer are in perfect harmony with the sentiment that your affliction has created in all countries, the universal recognition of the brotherhood of man?