CHAPTER II
CHILI: A REPUBLIC OF THE ANGLO-SAXON TYPE
Portales and the oligarchy—The ten-years Presidency—Montt and his influence—Balmaceda the Reformer.
In Chili the course of political evolution has been entirely original. Her first years of republican life were as troublous as those of the Argentine, Bolivia, and Peru; it was an age of anarchy. Carrera, the dictator, overthrew four governments; there were mutinies in the barracks, and quarrels among the generals; the Dictator O'Higgins fell in 1823; a junta followed him, and after the junta four governors, Freire, Blanco Encalada, Eyzaguirre, and Vicuña—ephemeral figures which a turbulent democracy set up and destroyed. They occupied the centre of the moving scene for some few months, and were seen no more. During the administration of Pinto, from 1827 to 1829, there were no less than five revolutions. Federation was attempted in a country essentially Unitarian; the Congresses were disruptive assemblies; and in 1828 and 1829 an obscure demagogy rose in revolt against the guardians of social order. The national life was chaotic: vandalism in the country, commerce paralysed, industry at a standstill, finance in disorder, credit vanished, and politics revolutionary. The parties were struggling for power; the "old wigs," pelucones, or conservatives, and the "white-beaks," pipiolos, or liberals. The latter governed a people in love with liberty. The political orgy continued until 1830; the Chilian people went from liberty to licence, and from licence to barbarism. At last the demagogy was checked by a man of superior powers, Diego Portales, founder of the Araucanian nation.
THE CATHEDRAL, SANTIAGO, CHILE.
(From "Latin America, the Land of Opportunity"
by the Hon. John Barrett.)
The social constitution of Chili, the contact of the castes, and the traditions of the country all favoured his work of organisation. A narrow territory, whose racial action must be unifying, and a long coast-line, evoking the desire of adventure and expansion; these are the geographical basis of a homogeneous race. The Araucanians do not exhibit the gloomy passivity of the Quechuas and Aymaras; they are rude and warlike. Miscegenation has not, as in Peru and Brazil, been complicated by Asiatic and African strains; it has been simple, without the terrible "hybridisms" of other countries. Hence national unity and historical continuity. Over the servile mass reigns, haughty and remote, a narrow oligarchy formed of austere and positive Basques, deliberate Anglo-Saxons, merchants, and sailors.
No slaves, as in the tropics, but inquilinos, feudal serfs of territorial barons. The oligarchy is agricultural, and therefore stable and profoundly national. In short, we have a copy of Anglo-Saxon society, or of the first Roman Republic; a false democracy governed by absolute overlords.
With these strong conservative elements, Portales constructed an austere nation. He was born in 1793, and was thirty-seven years old at the time of his first intervention in political life. He was a "new" man, a merchant, with precise ideas. He had the suggestive power of the caudillos, a concrete intelligence, a moderate education, a strong will, some power of reflection and authority. He might well become the leader of a race that knew nothing of lyric enthusiasms nor enticing dreams—the sensible director of a practical people. Minister under Ovalle in 1830, he profited by the victory of General Prieto over the pipiolos. His conservative, authoritative ideas carried him into power. He never wished to be President, but a powerful minister, like Disraeli or Bismarck. Three or four simple and concrete ideas guided him in politics; in the first place, the organisation of Chili against anarchy. Religion is one of the forces of order, and Portales, like Garcia-Moreno, utilised it without going so far as theocracy; the principle of authority is necessary in order to organise a country, and the leader of the pelucones demanded a strong executive with extraordinary faculties. Between two excesses—autocracy and demagogy—he inclined rather toward the former, and became a minister-dictator.
Portales governed against disorder; he dismissed the revolutionary leaders, and men he divided into good and bad. He surrounded himself with "good" men: they were, naturally, conservatives. He hated sargentadas (barrack mutinies); he educated the soldiers, and founded a national guard as a counter-check to militarism. He destroyed the bandits who infested the country. Primary and normal schools were opened, in which he favoured religious instruction. A severe economy was introduced into the national finances. His work was given legal and economic form by a Peruvian jurist, Juan Egana, and a Minister of Finance, Tocornal.