who had been governor. They filled all the places with their adherents. They held, and of course falsified, all elections. They had named as schoolmaster in one village a ruffian whose character was so notorious that respectable people would not allow their children to go near him. They terrorised the countryside by a simple device. Arbitrary fines were imposed, and the victim was compelled to pay them by buying stamped paper which must be presented before an appeal could be received. The privilege of issuing the stamped paper was granted to a member of the family, and no account was ever rendered of the money paid. It is needless to say that the foreigner, who has no native family connections, is more readily victimised than the Argentino.

The name of Córdoba leads easily to the mention of a curious feature of the immigration to South America. It is the most clerical region of the Argentine, and the city of Córdoba was the seat of the old Spanish University. No languages, mathematics, or natural philosophy were professed there, but only "ens and "essentia,”—or, in plain words, the dregs and dotage of the scholastic philosophy. Córdoba is one of the few places in the Republic which swarm with seculars and regulars. And an increasing proportion of these men is of foreign origin. It is becoming-and indeed has long been -very difficult to recruit in South America priests who priests who

can

will obey the Church's law of celibacy, or regulars who will keep their oath of chastity. From Mexico southwards the disorders of the clergy, secular or regular, are notorious. Decent behaved clerics only be obtained by importing them. No doubt many of the priests of foreign birth come in what we may term a legitimate way. mate way. The native clergy would not be sufficient in number, to say nothing of knowledge of language, for the immigrants. The attitude of the Italian or Spanish settlers towards the Church must be realised, and it requires some explanation. Whoever looks at bookstalls, kiosks, or booksellers' shops may be tempted to think that all South America, of whatever origin, is furiously anti-Christian, antipapal, and anti-clerical. They swarm with such books 'La Folie de Jésus,' 'The Cardinal's Daughter,' 'The Crimes of the Vatican,' The Horrors of the Inquisition.' But the very men who read these books, and who avow their atheism and contempt of the clergy, retain a lurking fear of the priest as a wonder working magician who may do them a damage. They will carry banners in a procession, and make use of religious ceremonies at marriage, birth, and burial-when the charge made by the clergy is not too high. The native clergy in country districts are extortionate, and that is one reason why marriage is so rare.

as

There is, however, something more than the necessity for

providing for the needs of immigrants or the deficiencies of the native clergy.

As the Governments impose no restrictions on the entry of clerics, South America has become the refuge of swarms of priests, monks, friars, and nuns, who for any reason are superfluous in Europe. The expulsion of the Spanish orders from the Philippines, the French Congregation Law, the recent revolution in Portugal, have been followed each in its turn by flights of clerical persons to South America. And there And there is deliberate policy in the movement. In Brazil the monastic lands were secularised on the establishment of the Republic, but it was decreed that the process should not be completed until the last survivor of the members of a religious house living in the time had died. Now it happened that the Benedictines had great possessions in Brazil. Of late years their houses have been copiously recruited from Europe, mostly from Southern Germany. The purpose, of course, is to retain the land by an evasion of the law. Unless it has been settled very recently, a delicate question is pending between the Brazilian Government and the Benedictines on this very point. And this is the type of much else. There is no doubt that, as the Church loses ground in the Old World-and as we can see from the example even of Spain, it does lose-it is trying to build up a new power in South America. The effort is hopeless enough, for it has

nothing to build on save the essentially heathen superstition of the ignorant native halfbreeds, the lingering taste of the immigrant for ecclesiastical shows, and the traditional piety of the women. The men who possess what passes for education in South America are as destitute of all religious belief as of sexual morality. The Church will doubtless try to make an alliance with political parties - which in South America means factions fighting for the control of the "spigot "spigot of taxation," but victory in these contests is capricious, and defeat means destruction for the clerical establishments. Meanwhile, if the Roman Catholic Church is making any effort to increase its power by convincing South Americans of the wickedness of corruption and brutality, and of the simian immorality which degrades their families, its exertions are invisible and fruitless.

The misconduct of South American officialdom does not, of course, pass entirely without protest from European Governments. But these Republics are in a most fortunate position. England sends no colonists. She had her lesson once and for all from Brazil. The story is now an old one, and lies buried in consular reports. But it is remembered by our countrymen in South America, and they would be the first to resist any proposal for British colonisation. Welsh colony in Southern Argentina languished, and would have vanished long

The

ago but for a plentiful use of Welsh pertinacity. We have already dealt with the cases of the French and Germans. The nations really interested are Italy, Spain, and Portugal. The second and third are too feeble to enforce respect. Italy is stronger, but even she is unable to extort respect for the rights of her subjects in view of the notorious fact that the United States would not allow her to make use of the most effectual means of coercion-the occupation of a port. Protests are idle, and are treated with derision. Only one weapon remains, but happily it is effective if vigorously applied. Italy can forbid the recruiting of labour by the agents of South American employers. She did so twenty years ago, in the case of Brazil, by the Prinetti decree which is still in force. She has just applied the same form of coercion to the River Plate Republics. The immediate pretext was the claim of these States to place sanitary officers of their own in Italian

steamers bringing out im migrants. This was manifestly the merely official excuse for a strong measure. The sanitary officials would be a nuisance if only because they would insist on receiving bribes, but Italy would not lose the benefit of the £50 or £60 brought back by each of the thousands of harvesters who return every year, on 80 small a point. She must have resolved to make an end of the perpetual misusage of her people by cutting off, or at anyrate

the indis

largely reducing, pensable supply of labour. If her measures are taken with energy, there can be no doubt that she will put severe pressure on the South Americans. Brazil must have Italian labour for its coffee harvest, and Argentina is far more dependent on the same source of supply for its maize and wheat harvest. So far, Brazil has lost by the action of the Prinetti decree, but it has been able to eke out its supply of labour by Portuguese and Galicians. Moreover, Italians on the way to the Argentine stop in São Paulo for the coffee. Even so, the Paulistas have been to a certain extent brought to book. The Italian consul at São Paulo is provided with funds to repatriate his countrymen, and he can secure justice for them by threatening to send away those of them who are aggrieved at times when their labour is indispensable. If the Argentine supply is stopped São Paulo will also suffer.

It is easy to understand why the Argentines were greatly agitated by the Italian decree. Their fine affectations of surprise that Italy should have taken so strong a step for so small a cause may be dismissed as one example more of the Latin capacity for play-acting. They know very well what is the real meaning of the Italian decree. They know also that within the last two years there has been a great exodus of Italians, provoked in part by the brutal application of the anti-anarchist law. They are

in fact threatened by a loss of labour which might be ruinous. Italy, too, will lose for a time, though not so heavily as the vanity of the South Americans makes them suppose. The Italians who bring most money home, and who return with the least injury to their health, are those who go to the United States, and they will not be affected. But whatever the loss may be, self-respect should make the Italians endure it, and their sense, which is good, must show them that a present sacrifice will bear fruit in future advantage.

They will, if they insist that a settlement of all other disputes and the giving of guarantees for the future must be the preliminary to the withdrawal of their decree, bring the South Americans to their bearings. In the interests of humanity it

is highly desirable that they should. Perhaps somewhat similar measures will have to be taken in the financial world some day. In spite of the much boasted prosperity of the last twenty years, neither Brazil nor the Argentine has brought its currency into good order, and both countries are for ever in the market in search of loans. But the financiers can look after themselves, and they have had their lesson. The unhappy immigrant misled by the profuse promises of South America is helpless against its corruption and brutality. It was high time that the Italian Government should act, and if its action has a little too much the air of a "combinazione," if it does shrink from openly giving its real reason, its action is none the less justified.