South America Fifty Years Hence 



43 1 



certainty of realizing Colonel Church's 

 plan, for the Brazilian government will 

 be impelled by the outlets Bolivia is se- 

 curing in other directions to build the 

 long-deferred railway around the falls 

 of the Madeira to Santo Antonio. It al- 

 ready has made financial provision for 

 this purpose just as Bolivia has made 

 provision by contracts signed within the 

 last few months for the connection of a 

 series of links from Laka Titicaca to the 

 border of Argentina, and also to Puerto 

 Pando, on the Beni River, which is the 

 beginning of navigation to the Amazon. 

 At the very farthest, the opening up of 

 this heart of South America may be 

 placed at a quarter of a century instead 

 of fifty years hence. 



THE NETWORK OF RIVERS 



There is another phase of river trans- 

 portation which undoubtedly will be con- 

 sidered within the next fifty years. Gen- 

 eral Rafael Reyes, the President of Co- 

 lombia, in his explorations showed the 

 possibility of interfluvial communication 

 through all South America. Other ex- 

 plorers and writers have advanced vari- 

 ous propositions for bringing the Mis- 

 sissippi Valley, through the mouth of the 

 Mississippi, and the immense interior of 

 South America, through the mouths of 

 the Amazon and the Orinoco, into more 

 direct communication. It is very fas- 

 cinating to think of sailing from New 

 York or New Orleans up the Orinoco or 

 the Amazon, and thence in smaller boats, 

 and even canoes, with an occasional port- 

 age, dropping down to Buenos Aires. 

 Fifty years hence it is quite probable that 

 the canal, of less than 1,000 feet in 

 length, which the early Portuguese ex- 

 plorers proposed from the headwaters of 

 the Guapore, the largest affluent of the 

 Madeira, in the Brazilian state of Matto 

 Grosso, to connect with the streamlets 

 Aguapey and Estiva, which empty into 

 the Jauru, a tributary of the Paraguay, 

 will be completed and a through means 

 of navigation be obtained. The Portu- 

 guese made this canoe voyage without 

 much portage. Some years ago. in Rio 



Janeiro, I saw the plans for the modern 

 canal connection, and they appeared not 

 only feasible in the engineering sense, 

 but practicable in the commercial view. 

 Yet this general fact is apparent — water 

 transportation by means of inland rivers 

 never reaches its full utility until the rail- 

 way systems begin to spread a network 

 among the river courses ; nor do coloniza- 

 tion and immigration follow upstream. 

 There are numerous regions in South 

 America easily accessible by river navi- 

 gation, yet the efforts to plant colonies 

 at their headwaters have failed. When 

 the railway begins to creep along, then 

 the people appear. 



IMMIGRATION VERY NECESSARY 



The whole question of immigration has 

 to be considered in discounting the South 

 America of fifty years hence. The move- 

 ment has been very slow, and even with 

 the better government which is now as- 

 sured in most of the South American 

 countries, it is not likely to keep pace 

 with the needs of production ; yet in time 

 it will be secured, and probably there will 

 be a notable movement within the next 

 few years to Argentina, Uruguay, and 

 southern Brazil, and later to the inter- 

 Andine regions. 



It must follow, if the development 

 which is to show that the South America 

 of fifty years hence has made much 

 greater progress than during the pre- 

 ceding half century does not prove an 

 illusion, that the minor streams of immi- 

 gration will turn into currents. The 

 native Indian stock of the South Ameri- 

 can countries must be overlapped. The 

 South America of the middle of the 20th 

 century will be less Spanish also, though 

 possibly not less Latin, for one of the 

 great sources of immigration which is 

 peopling Argentina and some sections of 

 Brazil is from Italy. The Panama Canal 

 is likely to bring this element around to 

 the west-coast countries. The northern 

 races — Scandinavians, Germans, and 

 natives of the British Islands — will find 

 much larger areas of settlement than 

 heretofore they have cared to seek. The 



