All such speculations are, however, subject to the possibility that the birth-rate, either in the temperate regions, or generally, may decrease. Such a decrease has, as respects Australia, thrown out the calculations made forty or fifty years ago.[153]
More important than the quantity of a population is its quality. Any enquiry as to what that of the South American countries will be when they are tolerably well filled up at the end of the present century can profitably address itself to one point only, viz. the several races and their relations to one another. There are now three races, Whites (of Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian origin),[154] Indians, of many tribes speaking different languages, and Negroes. A very rough estimate of the racial elements in the whole continent[155] might give some such results as these:—
Whites, 15,000,000 (more than half of them in Argentina and Uruguay).
Indians, 8,000,000.
Negroes,[156] 3,000,000.
Mixed whites and Indians (mestizos), 13,000,000.
Mixed whites and negroes (mulattoes and quadroons), 5,700,000.
Mixed negroes and Indians (zambos) (chiefly in Brazil) perhaps 300,000.
The reader will understand that these figures, based partly on a comparison of those given in various books and partly on enquiries addressed to competent observers, are given as only a rough approximation to the facts. There are no data for any exact estimate, and the difficulty of drawing any line between those who ought to be classed as pure whites and those who ought to be classed as mestizos or mulattoes, would be insuperable even if a regular and careful census were taken.[157] In arriving at this conjectural estimate, those who have three-fourths or more of white blood are counted as whites, those who have less than three-fourths as mestizos, or mulattoes.
If these figures are somewhere near the truth it will be seen that if we deduct 8,000,000, representing the two purely white republics of Argentina and Uruguay, we shall find that in the other Spanish republics, taken together, the mestizo element is much larger, and the Indian element somewhat larger than the white element. To explain the practical significance of these figures let me repeat what was said in an earlier chapter, that the mestizos and whites are, for political and social purposes, practically one class and that the ruling class, the Indians being passive, and in a political sense outside the nation. Even in Paraguay, an almost purely Indian state, the comparatively few mestizos dominate politically. In Brazil it is the whites who rule, but many of them are tinged with negro, fewer with Indian, blood.