CHAPTER VI
PARAGUAY SINCE 1870
No modern nation has ever come so near to complete annihilation as Paraguay during her five years' war against the Triple Alliance. Out of two hundred and fifty thousand able-bodied men who were living in 1864, less than twenty-five thousand survived in 1870. Not less than two hundred and twenty-five thousand Paraguayan men—the fathers and bread-winners, the farmers and labourers—had perished in battle, by disease or exposure or starvation. One hundred thousand adult women had died of hardship and hunger, and there were less than ninety thousand children under fifteen in the country. The surviving women outnumbered the men five to one; the practice of polygamy naturally increased, and women were forced to become the labourers and bread-winners for the community.
The slaughter was greatest in proportion among the people of white blood. When Lopez was waiting in 1868 for the final attack of the Brazilians, he made use of the last months of his power to arrest, torture, and murder nearly every white man left in Paraguay, including his own brother, his brother-in-law, and the generals who had served him best, and the friends who had enjoyed his most intimate confidence. Even women and foreigners did not escape the cold, deliberate bloodthirstiness of this demon. He had his own sister beaten with clubs and exposed her naked in the forest; had the wife of the brave general who was forced to surrender at Humaitá speared, and subjected two members of the American Legation to the most sickening tortures. The Minister himself barely escaped with his life.
When the Brazilians captured Asuncion in 1868 they installed a provisional triumvirate of Paraguayans, but the country was really under their military government until after the death of Lopez. A new constitution was proclaimed on November 25, 1870, but it was not until a year later that the provisional government was superseded by Salvador Jovellanos, the first President. The new President had no elements with which to establish a government,—neither money nor men. The country Paraguayans refused to recognise his authority and he was shut up in Asuncion. There were three so-called revolutions in 1872, which were suppressed by the Brazilian troops. The country really remained under a Brazilian protectorate for the first few years after the war, and the government was largely a convenience to make treaties and to try to place loans abroad. Toward the end of 1874 Jovellanos was succeeded by Gill, and by 1876 the country was finally enjoying peace and freedom from foreign control. The integrity of Paraguay and her continuance as an independent power had been mutually guaranteed by Brazil and Argentina when they began the war against Lopez, and neither of them could afford to let the other take possession of her territory. So Paraguay was left substantially intact, although she was compelled to give up the territorial claims the Lopezes had so long made against Brazil and the Argentine. The latter even submitted to arbitration her right to a portion of the Chaco north of the Pilocomayo. President Hayes was the arbitrator and he decided in favour of Paraguay in 1878. In the treaty of peace Paraguay had agreed to bear the war expenses of the allies and these immense sums are still nominally due from her. As a matter of fact, she has not been able to pay anything thereon, and the matter of forgiving the debt is one frequently discussed in Brazil.
Population rapidly increased after peace was thoroughly established, and has more than doubled in the last thirty years. In the late eighties the influence of the Buenos Aires boom extended to Paraguay, and the government offered great inducements to attract immigration. The movement was not very successful, but it had the indirect effect of transferring great tracts of land from government to private ownership. Previously, two-thirds of the land belonged to the State. One of the colonies was composed of socialists from Australia who promptly split on their arrival over the question of total abstinence. Those who insisted on being allowed to drink were obliged to leave. Subsequently, disagreements about doctrine and the application of the principles of socialism drove out others. The soil of Paraguay is marvellously fertile, but its isolation and the want of markets for the national products make it unattractive to European immigrants.
Happily Paraguay has not suffered from civil disorders during the slow process of national regeneration which has been going on since 1870. Most of the Presidents have served out their full four-years term, and the one or two changes which have occurred have not been accompanied by any bloodshed or interruption in administration. The chief difficulties of the government have been financial. Revenue is small and paper currency has been issued until it is at a discount of several hundred per cent. compared with its nominal value in gold; but since foreign commerce is inconsiderable and the population lives off the products of its own farms the results of inflation have not been so disastrous as they might have been in a commercial country.