Uruguay

“ Whoever wishes to have something by which to distinguish Uruguay from its many sister republics, the size and character of each of which are unfamiliar to many of us in Europe, may learn to remember that it is the smallest of the South American states, and that it has neither mountains, nor deserts, nor antiquities, nor aboriginal Indians. ”

“ One thing that struck me not only in the literature of the country and in the manifestations of its political thinkers, but in all the evidences of its daily life, was how slightly indeed has the tremendous modern development of the Argentine affected Uruguay. Just as the great current of emigration passes its shores and does no more than dash a little spray, in the form of a few stray emigrants, into Uruguay, so the progress of the Argentine has affected hardly at all the life of Uruguay. ”

“ Over the rolling hills of Uruguay struggled the human thread of emigrants. Death waited on the column in the shape of heat and hardship. But, though many children and many aged folk fell by the way, the great majority won through in safety to Salto, on the banks of the Uruguay; crossed the great river in boats, and took up their abode on the Argentine shore, awaiting with anxiety the hour that might permit their return to their native land. ”

“ It remains none the less true that the economic growth of Uruguay is in no whit inferior to that of the Argentine in these last few years, and the promise of the future justifies the highest hopes. It is possible that on either side of the estuary the heat of political and social verbiage is not always in accordance with cold reality. This is a criticism that might be made of any land, and I could apply it easily to those I know best.
When all defects and excellences are taken into account, I should say the Uruguayan is distinguished from the Argentino by his impulsive idealism. ”

“ Both Argentine and Uruguayan financial policies and methods are now sound. Argentina is prosperous with great future increase of prosperity before her, and Uruguay is now well on the high road to similar prosperity and as brilliant a future. Both are at peace with one another and their neighbouring Republics; all of whom are much too busy with their own interests and too democratic in spirit to dream of aggressive war. Added to which only Uruguay and Paraguay are small enough to need ever to covet further territory. ”

“ Although Uruguay is as much of an absolute monarchy to-day as exists on the face of the earth, her people have peace and prosperity, her development is being hastened by large works of internal improvement, her population is increasing rapidly, her commerce is assuming immense proportions, and she is making more rapid strides towards greatness than any other country in South America, except her neighbor across the River Plate. ”

“ Little countries, like little people, have a knack of making themselves interesting. The simile might be further pursued—especially among the Republics of South America—in that the smaller they are, the more noisy and obstreperous shall we find their histories have been. But there is a certain dignity and much to admire in the little Republic of Uruguay, and its country is one of the most attractive.
After the impression of vastness left on the wanderer in the Argentine, Uruguay seemed a very small affair indeed; no more than an Argentine province. ”

“ Uruguay is the smallest independent State in South America, and in its agricultural and pastoral resources the richest, with undiscovered possibilities in the mineral way. In the good old colony times the Viceroy of Spain and the Jesuits used to get a great deal of gold and silver—placer washings—from the interior of Uruguay, but during the long struggle for independence, and the sixty years of revolution that followed, the operation of the mines was suspended, and their localities forgotten or obliterated by the people, who were mercilessly robbed of the wealth they gathered in that way. ”

“ As its near neighbor and relative, Paraguay, is perhaps at the bottom of the scale governmentally, so Uruguay, by its national spirit, its energetic character, and its advanced legislation is probably at the top, more nearly fulfilling the requirements of an independent state than any other nation south of the United States. Certainly it is superior to both Chile and Brazil in everything but size, and it is doubtful whether even the Argentine is governed with more intelligence and general honesty. ”

“ The inhabitants of the two Republics of Argentina and Uruguay are only similar in appearance and natural characteristics to the superficial or hasty observer. There are several points in which they really differ fundamentally, the difference being due, as has just been observed, to the fact that the original settlements of the two parts of the River Plate Territories were drawn from different parts of Spain and that the later cosmopolitan stream of immigration passed by Montevideo, on account of the constantly politically disturbed condition of Uruguay, and disembarked only at Buenos Aires. ”

“ The ardent nationalism of Uruguay has nothing to fear from that of the Argentine. There are advantages and disadvantages in importing too great sensitiveness into every question. As a contribution to the International Exhibition in honour of the Argentine centenary, Uruguay published a very handsome volume, in which there was set forth in pictures and figures the entire history of their national development, the text being given in French and Spanish. ”

“ Uruguay contains over half a million of people, and has an area of seventy-one thousand square miles, intersected by several railways, bringing the interior within easy reach of the capital. It is said to be growing more rapidly in proportion to its size and the present number of inhabitants than any other part of South America. The republic is best known to the world by its Indian name, Uruguay, but on many maps it is still designated as the Banda Oriental, that is, the "Eastern Border." ”

“ Those of wide commercial experience in the continent say that the Uruguayan is the most honest man south of Panama; every foreign resident I questioned rated Uruguay as the most lovable country in South America—and as a rule foreign residents do not see the best side first. Personally, I found the Uruguayan more sincere, less selfish, somewhat more solid and at the same time more of an impulsive idealist than his materialistic neighbors across the Plata. ”

“ In nearly every department in the Republic, and above all in Montevideo, exist a great many good schools belonging to the above mentioned nations.
The foreigner who treads the Uruguay soil does not miss the customs of his own country, since the ones he meets here are nearly the same as in the principal European cities.
A great many years of continuous communication with all the nations of the world has made, that the customs of all the civilized nations are quite familiar to the natives. ”

“ The Republic of Uruguay has 72,210 square miles of territory, and is the smallest of the ten countries of South America. Its population is only 1,103,000, but the Liebig Company, "which manufactures beef tea for the world, owns nearly a million acres of land in Uruguay. On its enormous ranches over 6,000,000 head of cattle have passed through its hands in the fifty years of its existence." [Footnote: Clark. "Continent of Opportunity."]
The republic seems well governed, but, as in all Spanish-American countries, the ideas of right and wrong are strange. ”

“ It is regrettable, from several points of view, that the National Statistics of Uruguay are not kept and published with the same promptitude and regularity as those of Argentina, to say nothing of the admirable clearness of the forms in which the latter are issued. The Uruguayan authorities should really know that the absence of any complete scheme of statistical information regarding their country is more than apt to preserve a very common though erroneous impression that Uruguay can be of but little account since so little is known or heard of it. ”

“ Uruguay can still be roughly divided into two parts by drawing an almost straight line from, say, Mercedes on the River Uruguay to San Vicente on the Atlantic, the chief cereal areas lying south of this line, while the land north of it chiefly carries live stock. ”

“ The one is progressive and wealthy, the other backward and poor. Their boundaries are far from each other, separated by portions of Brazil and Argentina, but they are united by the great waterways of the Plate, as we have already seen.
If Uruguay is a small country in point of area, being about the size of the British Isles, which is not large in comparison with the vast areas of territory of her neighbours on the Continent, the Republic contains much that is important, both as regards its own life and development and its relations with foreign lands. ”

“ But, apart from its upper reaches, broad and full-flowing, the Uruguay encircles the Republic whose name it bears on its western side, and, falling into the Plate, affords, in conjunction with the sea, a water-frontage on three sides of the State, and is navigable for 200 miles from its mouth as far as the towns of Salta and Paysandu. Many hundreds of miles of the river are navigable in smaller craft, affording valuable waterways for the inhabitants on its banks. ”

“ Uruguay has a cosmopolitan population almost wholly of European origin. Since the World War it has attracted not only a large part of the Spanish emigration but also large numbers of Italians, French, Germans, and others. The earlier immigration was largely of North Italians, mainly of Alpine blood with slight Nordic infusion. The total population of the country is now well over a million and a half.
A wise selection of immigration from now on will still further increase the influence of this small republic, and set a good example for all of South America. ”

“ The history of Uruguay reveals an admirable amount of pure heroism. Apart from the fighting merits that are inborn and natural to the race, the most unsympathetic reader of its past pages cannot deny to it the innumerable instances of self-sacrifice that were the fruit of loftier ideals. ”

“ In its general features the country is not very different from the Argentine Pampas. There are the same alluvial soil, the same estancias, the same system of agriculture [Pg 290] and cattle rearing. For me the principal interest lay in the Uruguay character. Three visits of one day each furnished me with an occasion to converse with some of their most distinguished statesmen, but is this sufficient ground on which to form an opinion of a race whose superabundant activity is directed towards every department of knowledge, as of labour, now the first essential in any civilisation? ”

“ Uruguay is roughly a right-angled triangle in shape, its apex at the northwest, the western boundary line nearly perpendicular, the south side almost at right angles with it, and the Brazilian boundary the hypothenuse; with a little extra piece at the southeast bordering on the Atlantic. For the most part a gently rolling country well suited to agriculture as for cattle raising, it slopes towards the east, west, and south; having rougher and higher land at the north, where the greatest elevation is a little above 2000 feet. ”

“ With an area of only 72,000 square miles, as against 1,135,000 in Argentina and 3,208,000 in Brazil, Uruguay seems like a garden plot between two vast estates. But she is a veritable garden. There is hardly an acre of useless ground within her borders. Except a few bare hilltops and a few sandy stretches on the coast, all is available, either for cattle and sheep, or for tillage, or for forest growth. No country is more favoured by nature. ”

“ Among both there is the same aristocratic assuredness of social position; but whereas each better-class Argentine seeks to outvie his immediate associates in luxurious outward appearance, the Uruguayan is content with a more solid if less showy all-round level of comfort. If one may use so discredited a term, the Uruguayan is the much more “eminently respectable” of the two, a man who derives his greatest pride from the fact that his word always has been and is every bit as good as his bond. ”

“ A very large proportion indeed of the whole of the Republic of Uruguay may be considered as cultivable. In Argentina the question of how much of the whole area of that country may be so considered is yet without exact solution. ”

“ The Argentine is, as I have said, not a fool, even still less is the Uruguayan; on the contrary, he is especially wise in his appreciation of his own natural limitations. He is by long heredity and his own upbringing a farmer, not a commercial man nor a speculator in aught else but land. ”

“ Brazil does not: Argentina has more than once already in the past refused to take Uruguay into her Federation: Paraguay, except as a constant nuisance to herself and everyone near her, is, and will be for many years to come, a negligible quantity in South American politics. The Andine frontier now fixed between Chile and Argentine is never again likely to be disturbed by either. Uruguay may possibly cast longing eyes one day at the rich grazing lands of Southern Brazil ”

“ The truth is that no country nor individual has ever produced much art of any account during its or his infancy. And Argentina and Uruguay are still in the barely adolescent stage of their economic and political development. The many sympathetic, though often contrasted, characteristics of the true Argentine and Uruguayan hold out, however, good hope for artistic achievement in the future. ”