only becomes valuable through human labour, everything depends upon man's activity. In the depth of his soul, at once ingenuous and complex, are inscribed all the mysteries of the past, all the secrets of the future.

Admitting that American civilisation is of recent origin, it must be said that the American peoples, far from suffering from growing pains, as we are fond of imagining, are really old races transplanted. Like us, they bend under the weight of a heavy history of glory and human suffering; they are imbued with all our traditions, good or bad; and they are subject to the same difficulties, whilst manifesting their vital energies in an environment better adapted to their display.

Then, again, let us not fail to distinguish between Latin America of the South and Anglo-Saxon America of the North. Let us refrain as well from generalities, sometimes unjustifiable, regarding the parallel development of two orders of civilisation, and the future destinies which, in hours of crisis, may appear uncertain, of old historic races.

I shall deal only with Latin America, without, however, losing sight of the great Republic of the North, where I lived nearly four years. Since neither Jefferson nor Washington foresaw the economic evolution which, in a little more than a hundred years, was to be realised by their infant Republic, it behoves me to be modest in my prophecies. But, if I firmly believe that, in spite of the "historic materialism" of Karl Marx, commercial interests are not the only factors in civilisation; if I take from an eminent writer in Brazil, Señor Arinos de Mello, the curious information that in 1780, at 1400 kilometres from the coast, at the house of his great-grandfather, who had never seen the ocean, a company of amateurs played the tragedies of Voltaire—I must conclude that the influence of Ideas, inherited from our forefathers, is not less certain or durable than that of international trade relations. This I say with no intention of depreciating the importance of such commerce as, even at that time, served as the vehicle of Ideas—just as the good sailing ship transported a copy of Voltaire's Mérope or Mahomet from Rotterdam to Pernambuco, and a train of mules took a month to complete the journey. It should remind us that moral influences are not inferior in results to monetary affairs.

We French have allowed ourselves to be outstripped in economic matters at too many points of the globe. Yet, notwithstanding our mistakes, our eighteenth century—with the Revolution which was its inevitable outcome—has constituted for us a patrimony of moral authority which we should seek not only to preserve, but also, if possible, to enlarge.

G. C.

CONTENTS

SOUTH AMERICA TO-DAY

South America To-Day

CHAPTER I
THE OUTWARD VOYAGE

The Regina Elena is in harbour. A great white boat vomits volumes of