VENEZUELAN SOLDIER OF 1870.

Falcon's success meant the definite triumph of unrestrained federalism. The twenty states into which the seven old provinces had been divided in the effort to provide enough offices to go around, became in law sovereign; the presidential term was reduced to two years; absolute liberty of the press was permitted, and the right of meeting for any purpose guaranteed. Imprisonment for debt, the death penalty, and religious instruction in the schools were all abolished. During the five years that Falcon was the chief political figure affairs in Venezuela grew worse and worse. State after state burst into revolution. Falcon sometimes whipped the insurrectionists and sometimes bought them off, but more often was unable to secure even a semblance of obedience except by conceding everything. National penury reached the limit, the states collected and pocketed the dues in most of the custom-houses, officials were in regular partnership with smugglers, and finally the feeble ghost of a federal administration simply flickered out of existence because it could pay nobody.

A chief of the so-called unitarian party was declared president in 1868, but Guzman Blanco, now the undisputed head of the federalists, retook Caracas in 1870 and installed himself as dictator. He proved the strongest and most tenacious man who had yet come to the front. With a terrific insurrection raging against him, he concentrated all powers in his own hands, suppressed the peculations of his agents, and relentlessly dragged the half-breeds and negroes into his armies. He finally put down all his enemies and in 1873 was installed as constitutional president. Until 1889 he virtually reigned over Venezuela. Though occasionally he might allow some one else to be elected president, after a short interval he would find a pretext for intervention and oust his nominee. Though the Constitution was left substantially unamended, he interpreted it as he pleased. He organised a regular machine through which he governed the "sovereign" states, taking care that none but his creatures should become governors and that the members returned to congress should be docile. To all intents and purposes his will was the law of the land, for the legislative and judicial departments were his instruments, and his executive decrees covered nearly every imaginable subject. The minutest details of commercial and social life were regulated, the clergy owed their positions to the dictator, and even private property was not safe if Blanco took a fancy to it. But in the main his tyranny was intelligent. The country escaped the desolating outbreaks of local chiefs, with forced loans wrung from property owners and merchants, the seizure of cattle and coffee for "war purposes," and the lassoing of peons to serve in the armed bands. Though the taxes imposed by Blanco were enormously heavy, the marvellous productive forces of the soil could stand almost any burden provided its amount were certain and its collection regular. Though the dictator withdrew millions for his private use, depositing them in Paris against the evil day of his expulsion, indiscriminate exactions by subordinates were suppressed. Large sums were spent on public works and buildings, and the beautification of the city of Caracas, one of the handsomest and best-built cities in America, dates from Guzman Blanco's time. Nearly five hundred miles of railroad were constructed. The country was given and has retained the inestimable blessing of a stable currency, and the coffee and cacao businesses increased enormously. The number of cattle, which the civil wars prior to 1870 had reduced to one million four hundred thousand, increased sevenfold in fifteen years.

But Blanco's system was anomalous and rested on no secure foundation. The commercial and property-holding classes abstained from politics, the people became tired of his busybody tyranny, the peons were still an inert and ignorant mass, harmless by themselves, but furnishing a tempting recruiting ground for ambitious revolutionists. Nor had the Creole politicians changed their nature. There were plenty of talented adventurers whose mouths fairly watered seeing the immense fortune Blanco was accumulating, and who only waited a favourable opportunity to conquer a share in the spoils. The successful outbreak came in 1889, headed by Rojas Paul. His success was a signal for other chiefs to imitate his example. Resolute leaders hastily organised bands of peons, and the old story of pronunciamentos, kidnappings of peaceful peasants, attacks, surprises, forced loans, and all the demoralising and disintegrating horrors of civil war were repeated. Paul was overthrown by Andueza, and in 1892 Crespo got to the head of affairs and held power long enough to accumulate a respectable fortune. Andrade succeeded Crespo, but had to divide the spoils with his predecessor. The disturbances did not become of a character to injure seriously Venezuela's commerce and production until 1896, but there then began a rapid decline in the value of her exports. The government's revenues diminished a third and amounted to less than half the expenditures. The debt grew to alarming figures and the guaranteed interest on foreign capital employed in building railroads was allowed to fall into arrear. In 1899, Castro, a man hitherto unknown in politics, started an insurrection against Andrade in the western state of Los Andes. Marching from one town to another his army grew like a rolling snowball by forced enlistments, and though the sturdy hillmen did not know what they were fighting for and would gladly have been at home, they showed all the stolid bravery that seems inborn in their race. The government troops could not stand against them, and Castro finally entered Caracas in triumph. Though insurrection after insurrection has broken out against him, the dauntless courage with which he leads his men has enabled him to maintain himself. The successful South American revolutionist must be willing to risk losing his own life, for so long as he leads he will be followed, but his cowardice or death means a rapid dissolution of his forces.

VENEZUELAN GUERILLAS.

ECUADOR COLOMBIA AND VENEZUELA

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