sufficient courtesy and consideration, and there has been a tendency
here to blame the Northern Republic for pressing her South American sister too hard. That the attitude of Washington has not been over-conciliatory, we do not doubt. Anglo-Saxon bullying is apt to lack grace and finish, as has been shown a hundred times over in our own history. When Lord Palmerston forced the greeks to compensate Don Pacifico for the loss of his astonishingly valuable furniture, his methods of claiming justice were anything but courteous. Besides, America is one of the greatest nations of the world, both for population and wealth, and Chili is, if not one of the smallest, at any rate one of the least powerful. Any demand, therefore, on the part of the Union couched in firm language is sure to look harsh and unfair. But after everything has been admitted in regard to the harsh- ness displayed by the United States, the fact remains that she originally suffered a substantial injury, and an injury which no powerful civilised State could be expected to submit to. Suppose a body of English bluejackets had been brutally attacked in the streets of Monte Video merely as Englishmen, and that two or three of them had been killed, would there have been much difference of opinion in England as to whether or not Uruguay should be forced to make reparation ? Given these facts, the English people and Government would most unquestionably have re- fused to discuss whether their Minister had conducted himself properly or not, or whether Uruguay had not a legitimate grievance of her own against England. We should one and all have said :—' Here is a clear case of wrongdoing. You must make reparation for your insult to the Navy of a friendly State before we enter upon any extraneous matter.' This is in effect what the people and Government of the United States have said to Chili. Most assuredly, then, we have no right to regard their conduct as unfair or ungenerous. We may view with regret the appointment and maintenance at his post of a person of Mr. Egan's antecedents, and we may consider that the United States treated the Government of Balmaceda with too great consideration. That, however, cannot alter the fact that the United States had a right to seek reparation for a very brutal outrage committed upon her sailors.
It will, perhaps. be a matter for wonder that the Government of Chili did not at once recognise the inherent reasonableness of the demand of the United States, and satisfy her claims. Without any loss of dignity, the Chilian Ministry might have admitted the injury and expressed themselves willing to do whatever the American Government desired in the way of reparation. Govern- ments, however, are like individuals in their liability to quarrel about side-issues. The Chilian Govern- ment, just victorious in a bloody civil war, felt— not, we believe, without cause—that Mr. Egan had behaved in a manner unbecoming the envoy of a friendly Power, and were accordingly unwilling to do even what was best for their own country at his demand. They felt they had so good a grievance against the United States, that they would be justified in taking compensation by re- fusing to render her full rights to the Union. They were, in a word, intensely sore in regard to the conduct of President Harrison's Administration, and were determined to be as unpleasant as they could. But it may be said that they must have seen from the first that they would have to give in, and that therefore this resolve to be as grudging in their admission as possible was neither wise nor dignified. That is so, if we think only of the effect of a tardy submission in Chili. Granted, however, that the Chilians wanted to revenge themselves upon the United States for the humiliations they had been forced to suffer through Mr. Egan, and their policy of fighting any proposal for reparation step by step, and of yielding at the end only to superior force, will be seen to have been most successful. In the first place, they forced the American Government to assume before the world the undignified and invidious attitude of the strong Power bullying the weak.
Next, and most important, Chili has been able to force the United States to stand forth before the whole of the New World, not as she wished to stand forth, as the natural protector and friend of the South American Republics, but as a hostile Power extorting her pound of flesh from one of those Republics. Chili has, in fact, been able to give an object-lesson as to the policy of an Anglo-Saxon hegemony for the New World. Henceforth, the case of Chili will be ready to the hands of those who wish to show the Spanish-American world that the United States is not their natural friend and leader, but a hostile and alien State. All the fine talk of welding together the two con- tinents with bonds of reciprocal interest and love ends, it will be urged, in the despatch of ironclads the moment a, " sister-Republic" dares to dispute the justice of an American claim. Such a line of argument may not have much real basis, but it will, we expect, be quite enough to efface the not very strong impression made by Mr. Blaine's policy of Anglo-Saxon hegemony.
The most important fact about the Chilian incident is then, we fancy, that it has knocked the bottom out of Mr. Blaine's famous scheme for exerting political influence over the South American Continent. The coercion of Chili has banished that to the limbo in which reside such schemes as the British Protectorate of Asia Minor, and the conquest of Madagascar by France. The Spanish- Americans of the various Republics no doubt hate each other very bitterly ; but they feel, nevertheless, that the world is divided into those who speak Spanish and those who do not. Hence every Spanish State, from the Gulf of Mexico to Cape Horn, will agree in resenting the bullying of Chili. That Mr. Blaine's Jingo dream is. dispelled, we cannot profess to feel the slightest regret. Indeed, we are heartily glad of its collapse. That this is due to no unfriendly feeling towards the United States, it cannot be necessary for us to declare. Our sympathy for our kinsmen over-sea is of too long standing, and too well known, to make any such explanation requisite. We are glad that Mr. Blaine's idea of a hegemony of South America has had a blow which will destroy it, because we believe that, had it been carried out, or even had any serious attempt been made to carry it out, the result on the welfare of the United States would have been disastrous. The prosperity of the United States is due in no small measure to her freedom from foreign complications, and from attempts on her part to found an imperium over dependent States. The moment she enters upon a career of Jingoism, her prosperity and well-being will be im- perilled. If we wished America ill, we should regret the destruction of Mr. Blaine's house of cards. As it is, we rejoice that an accident has made it more than unlikely that she will ever again make any attempt to claim the political hegemony of the New World.
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