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opportunity for a corresponding extension among them of whatever has been of value in our social, economic, intellectual and political training. Should we be able, indeed, to work out and to apply the qualities and methods needful for the accomplishment of so useful an object, the South Americans on their part might learn to trust the United States more fully and to foster the cause of Pan-Americanism more actively than is now the

case.

With this broader view of the bearings of our South American trade in mind, an elementary study of it may conveniently begin with an account of the commercial situation in the continent at large. Then the special circumstances, the national policies, the individual traits and the business methods of the peoples of Europe who are chiefly concerned in the economic development of South America will be described and incidentally compared with the corresponding characteristics, in these respects, of the people of the United States. From each of these sources in turn certain general causes of our failure to obtain thus far our due share in the trade of the southern continent will be brought out. Lastly, an attempt will be made to show how our trade with South America may be enlarged. In the account that follows, however, no concrete examples will be furnished of the lines of American goods for which a demand exists, or might be created, in South American markets; nor will any comparison be offered between the prices of American and those of European products. Matters of this kind require a technical treatment such as a business expert alone may give. A discussion of them would hardly fall within the scope of an article which proposes simply to emphasize a number of primary reasons for the backwardness of our trade with South America and to put forth certain suggestions for its improvement. The bases upon which the several statements rest are derived in part from opinions expressed by South Americans themselves, as well as by American exporters alive to the situation, and in part from personal observations made by the writer during the course of recent visits to the principal countries of the southern continent.

It needs but a glance at statistics to show that the main currents of South American trade flow east and west, to and from Europe and not to and from the United States. While the total commerce of the several countries of the southern continent exceeds one billion three hundred million dollars a year, the share of the United States in that commerce is less than onesixth. Our exports to South America fall short of our imports by upwards of seventy million dollars, and constitute only about four and a half per cent of our total exports. For the existence of this trend of traffic adverse to us, the circumstances of geographical position, habits of association and the nature of many of the commodities exported from that continent are all responsible. The countries extending along the east coast face Europe and lie practically as near to it as to the United States. Advantages of location, strengthened by favorable conditions of climate and soil, have made their relations with the old world very close. The republics on the Pacific side of the continent are also quite as near to Europe as to the United States. Shut off in great measure by the wall of the Andes and prevented by other obstacles from attaining so rapid a development as the states to the eastward, they have come to be even more dependent upon their European connections. Nor has the communication recently established between Asia and the west coast of South America by means of a Japanese line of steamships led as yet to any marked change in the customary eastward direction of the west-coast trade. Even in the case of the two northern republics, Colombia and Venezuela, which lie nearer to the United States than to Europe, the commercial advantages thus afforded us have been largely offset, as we shall see, by the operation of other forces. Furthermore, it should be remembered that the population of the several republics has been greatly increased by immigration from Europe. Familiar with the products of their native lands, the newcomers naturally prefer such products to articles brought from other countries and maintain a constant demand for them, unless powerful inducements to the contrary are made effective. The South American states, finally, export great quantities of mining and agricultural products similar to those which form the chief ele

ments in our own export trade. Since these products find in Europe the ready market which they cannot possibly secure in the United States, it follows, as a foregone conclusion, that where the goods are sold corresponding purchases will be made.

This topic of the trend of South American trade suggests a brief account of the transportation system upon which it depends. Along the north coast of the continent, along the east coast between Pará and Buenos Ayres, and on rivers like the Amazon, the La Plata and the Paraná, the shipping facilities, in the main, are satisfactory. On the west coast the service is not so good. Until recently it was furnished chiefly by two lines of steamers, one British, the other Chilean. The companies owning them had in operation an agreement that fixed the sailing schedules and the freight and passenger rates. Of these arrangements it need only be said that the former was about as much honored in the breach as the latter in the observance. The steadily growing competition of the German "Kosmos Line," however, has now put the Chilean line out of business and seriously threatens the traffic of the British line.

On land the system of transportation in South America, taking the continent as a whole, is quite defective. In many of the mountainous and tropical regions of the interior and even in some portions of the low-lying, temperate areas of the south, railways are practically non-existent. Only the Argentine Republic, Chile and certain parts of eastern and southern Brazil possess anything like railway systems. Even these are insignificant in extension when compared with the huge areas yet to be covered. The transcontinental railway through the Argentine Republic and Chile awaits the completion of the tunnel under the Andes, and, except for the lines running from those countries and from Peru into Bolivia, there are no international lines whatever. All the other railways on the continent are short lines, stretching from the seaports a few miles into the interior. The result is that throughout most of South America the modes of overland transportation are as primitive as they were in colonial days. Pack animals, ox-carts and human carriers have to be brought into requisition. Though the rate of speed is necessarily very slow, the carrying capacity in one

form or another is surprisingly great. Almost any article from a piano to a two-ton telescope can be borne through the jungles and up the steep mountain-passes. So far as the pack animals themselves are concerned, the usual limit of the burden which can be borne by an ox is 400 pounds, and of that which can be placed on a mule, 250 pounds. A donkey or a llama will carry from 100 to 150 pounds. This, however, does not mean dead weight. On the contrary, the load has to be put up and adjusted so that about one-half of it will fall on either side of the animal. When the object is too heavy or too unwieldy for the beasts of burden to carry, it is slung on poles and borne on the backs of men.

Any needless deviation, therefore, from the rule of packing and adjustment by reason of weight or size means a corresponding increase both in the difficulties of transportation and in the freight charges. Assuming that the goods are in proper form and are entrusted to experienced freighters, the risk of loss or injury is not so imminent as it might seem. The very existence of the risk, nevertheless, adds materially to the insurance rates; and in all cases the freights charged for such primitive modes of carriage, to say nothing of those exacted by the vessels plying on many of the rivers of South America, are bound to be far in excess of what is demanded for transportation by sea.

Turning now to a description of the customs regulations, it should be said that the duties levied in South American ports are more commonly specific than ad valorem, the weight being determined strictly in accordance with the metric system. The tariff schedules themselves are often complicated and, unless followed very carefully, may cause articles to be taxed much higher than the class to which they properly belong. Special duties or surtaxes are levied at times on certain commodities, even though such duties may not be mentioned in the schedules directly under the technical headings of the goods in question. Some classes of merchandise, like oil and its products, lumber, machinery, construction material and agricultural implements, which are imported regularly and in large quantities, are not so subject as other goods to delays and hazards at the port of entry. Besides the import duties as such, there are certain

philosophical socialism had ceased to be harmless nonsense, it had actually become politically reactionary—a circumstance which did not endear its advocates and their theories to Marx or to Engels.

Marx started as a revolutionary democrat, and he remained first and last a philosopher of revolution. Not a phrasemonger but a profound dialectician, he was forced to abandon abstract Germany. In Paris, treading those hot pavements on which the revolution of 1848 was hatching, breathing a heavy stormladen air, he studied the social movement. There he found what his soul was craving: not logical antitheses, but classes struggling, moving and making history. Was it a momentary blaze, a people in fever? But even so, when the people have such a fever it is the king who dies. But no, it was no casual outburst. Nothing is accidental in history. Inevitable is history's majestic course; it moves" nach ewigen, ehernen, grossen Gesetzen," the key to which Marx felt in his hand. The power, it seemed to him, was already in the hands of that class to which his heart was so strongly drawn. Then why not proclaim it, why not organize the millions of suffering humanity in the name of class struggle? Why this talk about love and justice? Why obscure the issue just at the moment when a clear insight was needed? Why not tell the bourgeoisie that the proletariat will do to them just what they have done to feudalism, with the same right and the same necessity? Thus Marx entered the scene, carrying to their ultimate conclusion the class-struggle ideas of the French and trampling at the same time upon the various philosophical brands of home-made German socialism. (To be continued.)

VLADIMIR G. SIMKHOVITCH.

lich zum Ekel geworden sind. Einen moralischen Ekel muss jener politische Liberalismus erregen, wenn man ihm angesichts des geistigen und leiblichen Elendes der arbeitenden Volksklassen .. noch immer seine Illusionen verfolgen . . . sieht." Hess, Die gesellschaftlichen Zustände der civilisierten Welt, p. 2.

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