When the North American colonies separated from England, they were a small nation of less than three millions on the Atlantic coast. Thence they spread out over the vast space beyond the Alleghany Mountains, then across the Mississippi, finally over the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, remaining one nation over a territory thirty times greater than that which had been actually settled at the time of the Revolution. The same process happened later and on a smaller scale in the dominion which remained to England in the north. The Canadians have spread out from the banks of the St. Lawrence to Vancouver Island, also remaining one people. Thus Teutonic America now consists of two nations only.[130] How different the fate of the Spanish colonies. Scattered over a space eight thousand miles long from San Francisco to Magellan's Straits, in days before railways existed and with even steam navigation in its infancy, they did not think of trying to maintain political connection across vast distances, and naturally fell apart into many independent states, roughly corresponding to the administrative divisions of colonial days. The number of these states has varied from time to time. At present there are six on the North American continent, and ten on the South American, without counting Portuguese Brazil and the three island republics of Cuba, San Domingo, and Hayti. Out of the lands that obeyed Charles the Fifth, nineteen states have grown, all (except Hayti) speaking Spanish, while the English-speaking peoples are but two. Although the size of the territory occupied by these nineteen is the primary cause of this multiplication of small nations, there are other causes, also, political and social, which have been discussed in an earlier chapter.[131] One bond of union they had, one solid basis of common sentiment which, nevertheless, did not avail to hold them together. They all professed the Roman Catholic faith and all obeyed one spiritual sovereign at Rome, whereas among the men of English speech in Teutonic America there were, and are, not only many Roman Catholics, but also among the larger mass of Protestants many forms of Protestantism, and no common ecclesiastical authority at all.
This summary review of the causes which have made the currents of Spanish-American and Teutonic-American history run in different and divergent channels may be closed by enquiring what the two divisions of the New World have in common to-day.
They are alike in being (always excepting Canada) republican in the outward forms of their governments; that is to say, there is nowhere any official called a king. How far the governments of most Spanish-American states are from being republican in spirit and working everybody knows. To most men's minds, however, the form means a great deal. In Spanish America itself people who acquiesce in transitory dictatorships would be horrified at the idea of a hereditary sovereign, however constitutional. And there are still many people in the United States who find some virtue in the mere name of republic.
The two divisions are also alike in belonging to a New World; that is to say, they have shaken loose from many ideas and habits that belonged, and still more or less belong, to the Old World of Europe. Spanish America has done this more completely than has Teutonic America, because even in colonial days the ties of thought and feeling which bound the colonists to Spain were really less strong than those which connected the English of the United States with their mother country, and because the latter were, when the separation came, in a higher stage of institutional and intellectual development. The most signal instance of the general American breach with the Old World is the sense of social equality that now prevails alike in the English-speaking and the Spanish-speaking peoples. The forms in which this sense appears are not quite the same. Among the Spanish Americans there is more external deference on the part of the humbler to the higher placed, and the pure Indian is treated, and submits to be treated, as a social inferior. In Chile, for instance, the roto, or half-breed peasant, stands far more distinctly below the landowner than the North American day labourer stands below his employer; though it is his ignorance, not his mixed blood, that assigns this position to him. But in both continents the complete absence of any artificial and formal distinctions of rank is in striking contrast to the habits and ideas that still hold in most parts of Europe.[132]
It must be added that these republics of the West have, politically regarded, one important common characteristic. They constitute what German historians call a "States-System" of their own; i.e. they take no part in the politics of the Old World, but only in those of the New. This is no longer true as respects the United States, for though they do not interfere in questions purely European, and have touched those of Africa only slightly in the Congo, and more effectively in Liberia, which, indeed, they called into being, they have, by conquering the Philippine Islands, made themselves an Asiatic power, and by annexing Hawaii and one of the Samoan Islands, a Pacific power. Latin-American republics, however, have (so far as I know) intervened neither in European nor in Asiatic affairs, being content to attend strictly to their own business, which is sufficiently absorbing.
Latin America consists of two separate state-systems. One includes Mexico and the five small Central American republics, two of which, Costa Rica and Salvador, are peaceful within and seldom embroiled abroad, while the other three have had more chequered careers. Members of this group have had plenty to do with the United States, but seldom come into contact with the South American countries. The little republic of Panama, which is virtually under the protection of the United States, may now be deemed a "buffer state," between Colombia and the republics to the north, nor does any Central American republic possess a navy. The larger group is composed of the eleven South American states. It presents some analogies to the Europe of the eighteenth century in which there were several great powers "playing the great game" against one another and against the smaller powers, nominally in the interest of that so-called Balance of Power which was to prevent any one from dominating the others, but often in reality for the sake of appropriating territory, whenever a dynastic pretext could be found. In this group there are three great powers, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile; and when these three stand together, they can keep all the rest quiet, especially if (as they may usually expect) the United States throws its influence into the scale of peace. At present these three are tolerably friendly, and there is no reason why they should not remain so. Between them there exist no longer such territorial controversies as disturb the repose of Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru.[133] The politics of South America present an interesting field for study, but it is one upon which I cannot now and here enter.
Some publicists have suggested that troubles might arise to affect South America from without if Japan or China were to insist on flooding her with their emigrants, and that if this were attempted against one of the weaker South American republics, either the greater South American Powers, or the United States, or both, might be tempted to intervene. There are at present some Chinese and a very few Japanese on the Pacific coast, but no more seem to have been arriving in recent years. Any danger of this nature seems remote and improbable.
With these three things, however,—republican forms, social equality, and detachment from European politics,—the list of the things which the two Americas have in common ends. Far more numerous and more important are the points in which they stand contrasted.
Many causes have gone to the making of the contrast. Race and religion, climate and history have all had their share. The contrast appears both in ideas and in temperament. The Spanish American is more proud and more sensitive to any slight. He is not so punctilious in his politeness as is the Spaniard of Europe, and is, indeed, in some countries a little brusque or offhand in manners and speech. But he feels a slight keenly; and he knows how to respect the susceptibilities of his fellow-citizens. I will not say that he is more pleasure-loving than the North American, for the latter has developed of late years a passion for amusement which would have startled his Puritan ancestors. But he is less assiduous and less strenuous in work, being, in this respect, unlike the immigrant who comes from Old Spain, especially the Asturian and the Gallego, who is the soul of thrift and the steadiest of toilers. He is not so fond of commercial business, nor so apt for it, nor so eager to "get on" and get rich. The process of money making has not for him that fatal attraction which enslaves so many capable men in the United States and (to a less degree) in England and Germany, leading them to forget the things that make life worth living, till it is too late in life to enjoy them. In South America things are taken easily and business concerns are largely in the hands of foreigners. The South American—and here I include the Mexican—is an excitable being and prone to express his feelings forcibly, having absorbed from the Indians none of their stolid taciturnity. He is generally good natured and hospitable, and responds quickly to anything said or done which shews appreciation of his country and its ways. Private friendship or family relationship have a great effect on his conduct, and often an undue effect, for one is everywhere told that the difficulty of securing justice in these republics lies not so much in the corruptibility of judges, as in their tendency to be influenced by personal partiality. Things go by favour.
These contrasts of temperament between North and South Americans give rise to different tastes and a different view of life, so that, broadly speaking, the latter are not "sympathetic" either to the former or to Englishmen.[134] To say that they are antipathetic would be going too far, for there is nothing to make unfriendliness, nor, indeed, is there any unfriendliness. But both North Americans and Englishmen are built on lines of thought and feeling so different from those which belong to South Americans that the races do not draw naturally together, and find it hard to appreciate duly one another's good qualities.[135]