The Republic of Chile in great part escaped that turmoil through the establishment, after a brief period of conflict, of a fairly stable aristocratic oligarchy of landed proprietors. Her three "revolutions" have been landmarks rather than interruptions in her historical development; for they were brief, decisive and conducive to a clearer constitutional definition. Argentina, after the fall of the Dictator Rosas in 1852, began to feel her way towards union and order, and may be said to have achieved that end with the general acceptance of her completed Federal Constitution in 1880. In the tropical republics constitutional agreement was rendered more difficult by the mixture of races, by geographical and climatic obstacles and by a comparative remoteness from European influences. And in the Caribbean lands our own generation has seen Presidential seats occupied by despots of the old type, usually men of imperious and resolute character, dauntless courage and unscrupulous indifference respecting means and methods, men sometimes risen from the lowest station through ruthless force and cunning. Indeed, Mexico, after a period of remarkable economic development under the long autocracy of Porfirio Diaz, relapsed, upon his fall in 1910-11, into the condition of a century ago.
Yet it may be generally said that the decade following 1870 was the beginning of a new era for the Latin-American republics. The extension of steam navigation, the building of railways, machinery applied to agriculture, the influx of immigrants from Southern Europe and of capital from Northern Europe, the growing demand in Europe for foodstuffs and raw materials--all these things favoured, particularly in the south temperate zone, a rapid and very remarkable economic development which accompanied and aided a consolidation and closer cohesion of the social and political fabric.
The outstanding fact in the recent history of Latin America and in her present relations to the war is this economic development, this great creation of new wealth during the past generation. It has been described in many modern books upon the various republics, and can be studied in Consular Reports, which read like romances. The Pampa has become one of the chief granaries of the world; and Buenos Aires, the greatest city of the southern hemisphere, is the centre of a railway system almost equal in extent to that of the United Kingdom. Chile has been enriched by nitrate and copper, Brazil by coffee and rubber. The High Andes have become once more a treasure-house of mineral wealth: tropical hills, valleys and coastal plains yield the riches of their vegetable products.