Only a little over a year ago another controversy arose through the demand made by the State Department of the United States for the settlement of a claim which had been in dispute for many years. As a result much anti-American comment appeared in the newspapers of Chile, as though the United States was trying to enforce a rejected claim against a weaker nation. The visit of President Montt to the United States, while on his way to Europe to seek medical advice, only a few months afterward, however, seems to presage that the government of Chile has buried all difficulties and good will is again restored. It was not necessary for President Montt to come this way, and he undoubtedly did it in a spirit of amity and good will.
A great many erroneously place strong reliance upon the favourable effect of the Monroe Doctrine in South America. As a matter of fact the Monroe Doctrine at no period has caused the sale of a dollar’s worth of merchandise in those markets. It has, on the other hand, through misinterpretation of its intended beneficence, caused ill feeling, and, perhaps, prevented the sale of American goods in many instances. If the United States adheres to this doctrine, the completion of the Panama Canal will increase the responsibilities of the United States instead of lessening them. We, of the great North American republic, know that the action of the United States under this doctrine has always been intended for the welfare of the other Americans. Those who should feel kindly toward us, because of it, as a matter of fact rather resent its effect. They feel able to fight their own battles without the aid of the powerful republic on the North American continent. The visit of the United States fleet a few years ago at the various ports of South America, and the trip made by Elihu Root, then Secretary of State, did more to encourage a kindly feeling toward the United States and to develop a Pan-American spirit than anything the United States has ever done. It now needs only a wise and diplomatic policy to strengthen and extend the good feeling engendered by those events.
Chile, like all the west coast republics, is becoming very much interested in the Panama Canal, and the effect that its completion will have upon the country. Unlike the North American, the South American does not become impatient over the probable date of the completion of the canal, for it does not make much difference to him whether it is ten years or twenty-five years hence. The only question in his mind is what may be the ultimate effect of the canal. It is, perhaps, of more interest to a North American, because the North American is interested in the possibilities of trade development with that coast. At the present time there are perhaps 11,500,000 of people living in the republics of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile, which have a foreign commerce, including both exports and imports, in excess of $300,000,000. In addition to this there is the trade with the Pacific coast of Colombia. Then there is added to this the question of the probability of future development of those countries, which are in themselves larger than any European kingdoms, except Russia. The enthusiastic Chilean, for instance, will tell you how many times larger is his country than Holland, and estimates the immense population that his country could support at the same density per mile as that little European kingdom. This, of course, is absolutely impossible, because such large sections of the country are untillable. Furthermore, there never has been as yet such rapid increases in population in any of the west coast countries as the United States, Canada, Argentina and Australia can show. Hence it is not well to think of this section as being likely to have sudden growths of population, but there will doubtless be a slow and steady increase in each of the countries mentioned.
One advantage that will accrue from the completion of the canal will be better transportation between all the ports of the west coast and New York. A direct line of steamers between Valparaiso, and possibly ports farther south, to New York is sure to be established, for business conditions will not only demand, but warrant such a line. By this route the distance from New York to Valparaiso will be only fifty-one hundred miles, including the stops at several intervening ports. When this distance is compared with that from Valparaiso to Liverpool, by the way of the Straits of Magellan, which is ninety-five hundred miles, it shows that New York will be several thousand miles nearer to Valparaiso than European ports by the same route, and the difference becomes greater as you journey along the coast toward Panama. If British steamers should use the Panama Canal it would still make New York nearer to all the ports on the west coast by almost three thousand miles. As it is there are no boats flying the American flag which visit Chilean or other west coast ports, except an occasional tramp lumber schooner which comes down from Seattle, or a boat which comes through the Straits of Magellan now and then from New York for a load of nitrate. Much of the traffic is obliged to go to Callao, Peru, and there be transferred to another steamer to be taken to Panama; then it is shipped by rail across the Isthmus, and again loaded on another steamer destined either for New York or New Orleans.
THE CUSTOM HOUSE, VALPARAISO.
It does not require an especially sharp insight to see the advantage from a commercial standpoint of a direct line between these ports and New York. Furthermore, since the completion of the Transandine Railway, and still more so when the other route farther south may be finished, large sections of fertile Argentina will be nearer to the west coast than to Buenos Aires or Bahia Blanca, on the Atlantic coast. This would mean that shipments which are destined for the United States from those sections would probably be made by the steamers using the west coast route, and through the Panama Canal. Of course that would not be true of grain products, for those shipments go to Europe, as the United States has not yet become an importer of grain, with the exception of flax seed. We do, however, take the greatest portion of wool, hides and certain other products. It will tend, in the opinion of the writer, to not only bring about closer commercial relations, but to develop a spirit of Pan-Americanism, which will mean a great deal for the United States. Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador have been much under the influence of American business interests, and Chile has a natural inclination as well toward the North Americans, but the diplomatic incidents heretofore mentioned have made the Chileans a little bit suspicious of the policies of the United States. This will, however, I believe, be entirely overcome within a very short time. The people of Chile will then realize that the North Americans are their best friends.
THE END.