Latin America: Its Rise and Progress

by Francisco García Calderón

In America and in America only the political problem is relatively simple. Unity is there at once a tradition and a present necessity, yet in spite of this fact the disunion of the Latin democracies persists.

Forty years ago Alberdi thought it necessary, and believed it possible, to redraw the map of America.

To-day the Latin nations overseas are less plastic; the frontiers seem too definitely established, and prejudices too deeply rooted to allow of such a recombination; but the formation of groups of nations is no less urgent. If the unity of the continent by means of a vast federation in the Anglo-Saxon manner seems impossible, it is none the less necessary to group the Latin-American nations in a durable fashion, according to their affinities. While respecting the inevitable geographical inequalities which give certain peoples an evident superiority over others, and the no less inevitable economic inequalities which create natural unions, it would still be possible to found a stable assemblage of nations, a Continent.

There is a spontaneous hierarchy in the Latin New World; there are superior and inferior democracies, maritime nations and inland states. Paraguay will always be inferior to the Argentine Republic; Uruguay to Brazil; Bolivia to Chili; Ecuador to Peru; Guatemala to Mexico; as much from the point of wealth as in population and influence. The preservation of the autonomy of republics which differ so greatly in the extent and situation of their territories can only be removed by federative grouping. To oppress and colonise these countries is the desire of all imperialists, no matter whence they come; but the peace of America demands another solution; which is, not the synthesis which some one powerful State might enforce, but the co-operation of free organisms. By grouping themselves about more advanced peoples the secondary nations might succeed in preserving their threatened autonomy.

Central America, exhausted by anarchy, may aspire to unity; these five small nations maintain a precarious independence in the face of the United States. Until 1842 Central America was only one State, and subsequent attempts at unification proved that this was not merely the artificial creation of its politicians. When the Panama Canal has divided the two Americas, and increased the power of the United States, these nations, together with Mexico, might form a true Spanish advance-guard in the North.

Moreover, the free islands of the Caribbean Sea might be united in a Confederation of the Antilles, according to the noble dream of Hostos. Greater Colombia might be reconstituted, with Ecuador, New Granada, and Venezuela. Their greatest leaders have desired their union, as a preventive of indefinite and fractional division and internal discord. On the basis of common traditions, and for important geographical reasons, these three nations might form an imposing Confederacy. Once the Canal is open, this group of peoples, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, on the northern extremity of the continent, would form a massive Latin rampart, a country capable of absorbing European emigration and of opposing to Anglo-Saxon invasion the resistance of a vast populated and united territory.

Bolivia, the inland republic, deprived of her coast-line by Chili, has already been twice united to Peru; in 1837, under the authority of Santa-Cruz, and in 1879, to oppose the supremacy of Chili on the Pacific. What should henceforth separate it from a people to which it is united by so many historical and economic ties, and a similitude of territory and race from Cuzco to Oruro? Chili and Peru will be either two perpetual enemies, or two peoples drawn together by a useful understanding. Their geographical proximity, their mutually complementary products—the tropical fruits of Peru and the products of the temperate zones of Chili—might contribute to bring them together. Have we not here an actual economic harmony? In the moral domain the very causes which have engendered hatred between Chili and Peru, from the time of Portales to that of Pinto, might equally prove to be the elements of future friendship. Peru, impoverished by the Chilian conquest, and deprived of her deposits of nitre, would no longer be the victim of the Chilian greed of gold, nor the hatred of a poor colony for the elegant vice-kingdom. Chili is wealthier than Peru, and her people have more energy and more will-power, although they may have less imagination, less nobility of character, and less eloquence. The Peruvian vivacity and grace may be contrasted with the prosaic deliberation of Chili; the anarchy of the one country with the political stability of the other; the idealism of Peru with the common-sense of Chili. Physically and morally these two countries complete one another. The economic necessities of each might form the permanent basis of a possible alliance. The Confederation of the Pacific, formed by Peru, Bolivia, and Chili, would be a safeguard against future wars in America. Unhappily Chili professes and seeks to enforce a superiority founded upon victory, just as, when the German Empire was confederated, victorious and warlike Prussia enforced her superiority over artistic Bavaria.

The Confederation of La Plata, the heir to the traditions of the colonial era, might be formed of Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. Rosas did seek to create this great federal organisation. During the course of the century Uruguay has extended her sympathies alternately to the Argentine and to Brazil, and Paraguay, during a period of epic grandeur, defended her isolation. The union of these republics was prevented by national rivalities and the ambitions of their caudillos, but it will surely be effected in the future under the pressure of the power of Argentina. It is true that Uruguay has only too definite an originality in the matter of intellect, from the point of view of liberalism and education, but the federation of the future would not be the imposition of a harsh hegemony of one nation over others, but rather the co-operation of republics with equal rights which had at last understood the poverty of their isolated condition. Paraguay, remote and concealed, ruled sometimes by a Jesuitical and now by a civil dictatorship, has need of a place in such a vast confederation of cultivated peoples.

These groups of nations will thus form a new America, organic and powerful. Brazil, with her immense territory and dense population; the Confederation of La Plata; the Confederation of the Pacific; Greater Colombia: these will finally establish the continental equilibrium so anxiously desired. In the North, Mexico and Central America and the Confederation of the Antilles would form three Latin States to balance the enveloping movement of the Anglo-Saxons. Instead of twenty divided republics we should thus have seven powerful nations. We should have not the vague Union of which all the Utopian professors since Bolivar have spoken, but a definite grouping and confederation of peoples united by real economic, geographical, and political ties.

To realise these fusions there are both economic and political methods. Hasty conventions would be powerless to uproot the hatreds and the narrow conceptions of patriotism peculiar to the American peoples. The organisation of the continent should be the work of thinkers, statesmen, and captains of industry, a work fortified by time and history. To the tradition of discord we must oppose another, the tradition of union.