The Argentine States have promoted immigration so successfully that they have received in some years accessions to their numbers of from sixty to ninety thousand persons—British, Italian, French, German, and Swiss. They have thus the presence of a large European element, which gives energy to every liberal and progressive impulse. The great city of Buenos Ayres is, to the extent of half its population (of 220,000), a city of Europeans. In most of the other cities this European element is present and influential. Far in the interior are many little colonies composed of Europeans, settled on lands bestowed by Government, engaged in sheep or cattle farming, growing rich by the rapid increase of their herds on that fertile soil. Full religious liberty is enjoyed, and all the various shades of Protestantism are represented in the chapels of Buenos Ayres or in the rural colonies of the interior. Two thousand five hundred miles of railway are in operation; direct telegraphic communication with England is enjoyed; the provinces are being drawn more closely together by the construction of roads and bridges; the vast river systems of the Confederation are traversed by multitudes of steamers. The people have entered, seemingly, with earnestness on the task of developing the illimitable resources of the great territory which Providence has committed to their care.
Our survey of South American history since the era of Independence discloses much that is lamentable. It discloses nothing, however, that is fitted to surprise, and little that is fitted to discourage. We see priest-directed and therefore utterly ignorant people throwing aside the yoke of an abhorred tyranny. We see them assume the function of self-government without a single qualification for the task. We see them become the prey of lawless and turbulent chiefs, of a selfish military and priestly oligarchy. We watch their struggles as they grope in blind fury, but still under the guidance of a healthy instinct, after the freedom of which they have been defrauded. At length we are permitted to mark, with rejoicing, that they begin to emerge from the unprecedented difficulties by which they have been beset. The path by which they must gain the position of orderly and prosperous States is yet long and toilsome. It is now, however, at least possible to believe that they have entered upon it.
[The disturbed condition of the Western States continues without abatement, and without prospect of settlement. Both Peru and Bolivia are practically at the mercy of Chili. The war is over, but peace is made impossible by the anarchy that prevails in the vanquished States. The President of Peru is a fugitive. The President of Bolivia has absconded. There is no settled government in either country with which the Chilians can safely make terms. What seems most certain is, that the provinces which yield most abundantly that nitrate of soda about the export of which the war originated will be permanently annexed to Chili. Indeed, these districts are now administered by Chilian functionaries.
The Conservative counter-revolution in Mexico, under Diaz, lasted till 1880, when General Gonzalez was elected President. An insurrection in the capital had to be suppressed before his installation could take place.
In Buenos Ayres, nationalism has had a further struggle with provincialism, and another triumph over it. In August 1880 the national troops forcibly entered the Provincial Assembly, and ejected the deputies at the point of the sword. A few days afterwards, General Roca, the new President, entered the capital.—Ed.]
CHAPTER VI.
THE CHURCH OF ROME IN SPANISH AMERICA.
At the time when the discovery and possession of the New World occupied the Spaniards, the Church of Rome exercised over that people an influence which had no parallel elsewhere in all her wide dominion. A religious war of nearly eight centuries had at length closed victoriously. Twenty generations of Spaniards had spent their lives under the power of a burning desire to expel unbelievers from the soil of Spain, and win triumphs for the true faith. The ministers of that religion, for which they were willing to lay down their lives, gained their boundless reverence. To the ordinary Spaniard religion had yet no association with morals; it exercised no control over conduct. It was a collection of beliefs; above all it was an unreasoning loyalty to a certain ecclesiastical organization. To extend the authority of the Church, and, if it had been possible, to exterminate all her enemies, formed now the grand animating motives of the Spanish nation.