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South America To-day
A Study of Conditions, Social, Political and Commercial in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil

South America To-day A Study of Conditions, Social, Political and Commercial in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, South America To-day, by Georges Clemenceau

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Title: South America To-day

A Study of Conditions, Social, Political and Commercial in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil

Author: Georges Clemenceau

Release Date: May 9, 2014 [eBook #45621]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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SOUTH AMERICA
TO-DAY

A STUDY OF CONDITIONS, SOCIAL
POLITICAL, AND COMMERCIAL
IN ARGENTINA, URUGUAY
AND BRAZIL

BY
GEORGES CLEMENCEAU
FORMERLY PRIME MINISTER OF FRANCE

 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1911


Copyright, 1911
by

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

The Knickerbocker Press, New York


INTRODUCTION

I have been asked for my impressions as a traveller in South America. I had no sooner promised them than a difficulty presented itself. I have no notes of my journey, and I should be sorry to have them, for it is annoying to record impressions in black and white at the precise moment when one feels them most vividly. And I pass over in silence the hour when it is wisdom to remain quiet.

The task of Christopher Columbus was lightened by one fact. America was there, stationary, in the middle of the sea, only waiting for some one to knock against it. I even found in Brazil an eminent Senator for the State of Saint Paul, Señor Almeida Nogueira, who declared that the principal event of that Friday, October 12th, was the discovery—by the original Americans—of Europe in the person of the great Genoese. They had this advantage over him—they had not left their homes.

What was I going to discover in my turn, at the risk of being myself discovered?—unknown countries?—unheard-of peoples?—virgin civilisations?—or simply points of comparisons for new judgments on myself and on my country?

Our self-satisfaction will not allow us readily to admit that we have anything to learn from young communities, though we are too ready to talk in generalities about them. We cannot deny, however, that their effort is fine, and tends continually toward success.

In such a result the least quick-sighted of us must be interested. Facility of communication has multiplied the points of contact between the men of every country. One of our first needs is to correct the vague or false conceptions of the different human societies borne by this globe in a tumult of joy and misery towards destinies unknown.

Because there was no one to contradict them, travellers of ancient times were able to give full play to their wildest imaginings. A proverb even sanctions their lack of veracity. When our good Herodotus related that the army of Xerxes dried up the rivers on its passage, the Athenians, perhaps, were not astonished. Christopher Columbus himself died in ignorance of the continent on which he had landed, convinced that he had reached the east coast of Asia. To-day it is another matter. From the Poles to the torrid zone are at work innumerable explorers who only succeed painfully in discovering the new at the price of being verified by their rivals. The incidents which accompanied the probable discovery of the North Pole by Commander Peary showed the danger of rash assertions, even when denial seemed only possible from seals and white bears.

I enjoy, happily, the great advantage of having discovered nothing. And, as I am less ambitious of astonishing my contemporaries than of suggesting reflections by the way, I shall perhaps escape offending the susceptibilities of those formidable savants who, having theorised upon everything, can only see everything from the standpoint of their studies. Statisticians had better avoid me; I have nothing to tell them. Having no preconceived notions, I shall not attempt to make facts square with them. Having in mind Voltaire's expression that the most mischievous ignorance is that of the critic, I confess that my own criticism of old civilisations makes me indulgent towards new experiments outside Europe.

I am of my time and my country, and at the end of a long career I submit with equanimity to the public the opinions and judgments I have gained. I do not share the prejudices current in Paris against the suburban dwellers of Villers-sur-Marne or St. Cloud. Our comic journals and our plays have inflicted the same kind of torture upon the South Americans. Having ridiculed them for so long, has not the moment come when we should study them, not merely to flatter ourselves at their expense, but as a people who, more than any other, are our intellectual children, and to ask ourselves whether we cannot sometimes learn something from them?

It is not in three months that one gets definite ideas as to the future of these vast territories, where a work of civilisation is going on which will inevitably change the political and social equilibrium of the planet that to-day is still, in effect, European. It is always difficult to report faithfully what one has seen, for there is an art in seeing as in telling. Without claiming to have achieved it, I venture to hope that my observations, impartially recorded, will bear the seal of good faith and be of some use to the reader.

It is obvious that the towns of South America, though some of them are very fine and well laid out, cannot, by reason of their recent history, offer monuments comparable with those of Europe. One not infrequently hears a remark of this sort: "Have you seen that old church over there? It is at least forty or fifty years old!" The towns derive their chief interest from their situation and surroundings; their internal features are only those which Europe has been pleased to send them in superabundance. There remain the land and the people, two worthy subjects of study. The land, rich in undeveloped forces, calls for new energies. As it

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