Review of Reviews, 1/11/06. 



Topics of the Month. 



555 



their aims and as bold in their aspirations as the 

 most sanguine, but they seek, by the saving grace 

 of commonsense, to be businesslike in their pro- 

 posals, marching from experience to experience ac- 

 cording to the sober judgment of the electors whom 

 they represent. 



tor the gigantic powers and unscrujnilous 

 methods of Trusts and Combines as for the throng 

 <jf those who live upon the work of others with- 

 out making any real contributions of their own to 

 the common weal, they have no respect. 



The Act for the Preservation of Australian In- 

 dustries, popularly known as the Anti-Trust Bill, 

 antl the Acts which, while encouraging local manu- 

 factures, safeguard both the workmen engaged upon 

 them and the public who purchase their goods, 



afford an apt illustration of our industrial objects 

 and equitable methods. They also supply a key to 

 the ideal of our party ; an ideal which, while pur- 

 suing social justice, shelters no wrong, however 

 hoary, and permits no bars to progress to remain, 

 capable of being removed by wise legislation and 

 sane administration. 



The L.iberal-Protectionist Party seeks to amelior- 

 ate the conditions, multiply the opportunities, and 

 enhance the uses of the splendid natural inheritances 

 which the Australian people enjoy to-day under the 

 protection of the British flag, building up a great 

 and free community adequate in numbers, in equip- 

 ment, and in capacity to the rich continent now so 

 lightly held by us, which we have yet to cultivate 

 and make truly our own by a manly policy of cour- 

 ageous effort and undaunted self-development. 



ENGLISH INTERVIEWS. 



BRITISH TRADE IN BOLIVIA: MR. THOMAS H. MOORE. 



South America is for the British public so much 

 of a sealed book that I was \ery glad to welcome 

 to Mowbray House an old subscriber who has 

 spent nearly half a century in that little-known con- 

 tinent. Mr. Moore, Inspector-General of the 

 National Bank of Bolivia, called upon me last 

 month, and kindly consented to be interviewed for 

 the benefit of his fellow-subscribejrs. He has spent 

 years of his life in Mexico, in Chili, in the Argen- 

 tine, and he is at present in London on furlough 

 from the responsible post which he occupies in 

 Bolivia. 



" Tell me about Bolivia," I said. 



"Bolivia," said Mr. Moore, "is the Arcadia of 

 South America. It is a State w-hich is almost cut 

 off from the outer world. Its people live secluded, 

 and they have the qualities and the faults of 

 the qualities of the ancient Arcadians, who, if 

 Greek literature be any guide, were very much like 

 the modern Bolivians." 



" Let us have their virtues first." 



" The pre-eminent \ irtue of the Bolivians is their 

 .honesty in great things. Bolivia is the only country 

 in the world in which bankers can put ^^5000 in 

 specie on a mule, and send it without an escort 

 through a scantily-peopled w-ilderness without the 

 least fear that anyone will steal the money. If by 

 any almost inconceivable chance the money was 

 stolen, the Indians would never rest till they tracked 

 down the thieves and delivered them up to justice." 



" Are thev as honest in everything as thev are in 

 this?" 



"Alas! no. In small things, like their predeces- 

 sors in Greece, they are pilferers. And in the ser- 

 vice of the State there is much corruption. It has 



been bitterly said that in Bolivia all the intelligent 

 men are thieves and all the honest men fools." 



"What about the resources of the country?" 



" They are enormous. Bolivia is simply gorged 

 with minerals. Her tin mines run deepest in the 

 world. A Bolivian recently sold one-half of one of 

 his tin mines for _;^3so,ooo. Her silver mines are 

 also fabulously rich, but most of them have been 

 ruined by bad management. The country has 

 hardly been tapped. Imagine a vast region of 

 700,000 square miles served by only one railway 

 700 miles long I" 



" Why, the German Empire only covers 208,000 

 snuare miles. So Bolivia is more than thrice the 

 size of Germany, and has only 700 miles of rail- 

 way?" 



■' That is the fact, and only 1430 miles of 

 cart road. Communications are chieflv carried on 

 by means of pack mules. What is almost worse 

 than having only one railway is that Bolivia has no 

 seaport. Her natural outlet to the ocean was taken 

 from her by Chili at the end of the w^ar, and to-day 

 she is shut up and shut off from the world." 



" How fares it with British trade in this Ameri- 

 can Arcadia?" 



" When first I went to Bolivia thirty years ago 

 British goods had corrimand of the market. To- 

 day Bolivia takes ^^30 of German goods for every 

 ;£2-] she imports from Britain and ^10 from the 

 United States." 



"Why have we lost our premier position?" 



" Partly for our virtues, partly for our faults. I 

 have known one British business in Bolivia ruined 

 after another simply and solely because of the ignor- 

 ance, incompetence, and lack of energy on the part 

 of the British guinea pigs who ruled the board of 





