easier, by water, to the Atlantic. Bolivia's present population is 2,000,000.

The economic disadvantages of these aforementioned groups are reflected, of course, in the trade figures. For example, the total trade of the north coast is only a trifle over 4 per cent of that of the total trade of the continent, and the total trade of the west coast is 20 per cent of the total trade of the continent, of which Chile, with its nitrate, has 13.5 per cent.

Now it is the west coast of South America that will be affected by the Panama Canal. But for reasons of its geographic relations to Europe and to the United States, and the routes of trade, and expense of tolls, it is extremely doubtful if the west coast, south of Valparaiso, will be affected in any considerable direct way by the Panama Canal. Possibly a present population of 10,000,000 on the west coast, all located north of the agricultural section of Chile, will be affected by the Canal.

Coming to the east coast a vastly different situation presents itself. In Argentina we have easily the country of greatest possibilities in South America. It already supplies over 36 per cent of the foreign trade of South America, although having but about 15 per cent of the area and 14.5 per cent of the population. Argentina has the products which the world needs, and must have increasingly as population increases-namely food stuffs. We are practically ceasing already to export them. Argentina has just begun making meat shipments to us. Land values are steadily rising in the Plate region. But even in Argentina there are facts to be considered.

In Patagonia, south of the Rio Negro, the productive quality of the land as evidenced in the support of sheep, is one to six, when compared with the land of the province of Buenos Aires, which is certainly one of the richest, if not the richest area of land of the same extent in the world. In the central part of Argentina the question of insufficient rainfall is serious. At the western boundary of Argentina the rainfall diminishes to 4 inches, but there irrigation is possible, and is in effect. In the north of Argentina there

is much saline and alkaline land and swamp land. The amount of fertile land in Argentina is not limitless, and is probably overestimated. The possibilities of dry farming are not exhausted, by any means, but it can be said that the Argentine government regards as a serious problem the great areas of semi-arid land between San Luis and Mendoza. A survey of the physical resources of Argentina recently completed estimates that two-fifths of its area is arable land. Once more, still mindful of the precarious footing of a prophet, it can be ventured that an estimate of 30,000,000 as a possibility for the present 7,000,000 of population of Argentina need not be regarded as pessimistic.

In Brazil, a country whose area is nearly equal to our own excluding Alaska, we have much more of an unknown quantity. Transportation conditions and labor conditions in Brazil are indeed serious. The labor situation it is being sought to remedy by immigration, and by industrial education, and general bettering of conditions. No one really knows much about Brazil. It has a population at present of about 21,000,000 probably, three times as great as Argentina, but with 5 per cent less trade. Ninety per cent of Brazil and over is in the tropics. Its position in trade is due chiefly to its products-rubber, coffee, and cocoa. In coffee its position seems secure, its proportion to the world's supply is steadily increasing and it now furnishes nearly three-fourths of it. In rubber exactly the reverse has taken place its proportion to the world's supply falling to about one-half at present, and still decreasing, and it is perfectly true to say that Brazilian rubber interests are seriously alarmed over the future of their rubber. Experimentation in plantation rubber is being conducted, and labor and transportation conditions are being bettered in an attempt to hold its position in the world's rubber market.

I should dislike to be considered too conservative about South America. What I have sought is to leave with you two ideas, one general, the other specific. One an economic perspective of South America that I believe to be correct, and the other a concrete suggestion for our South American trade to establish an American department store in at least

one city in South America, and preferably in four citiesas a potent stimulator of trade.

I firmly believe that despite the general natural inferiority of South America to North America, it will progress more in the next fifty years than it has in the last four hundred. Its time has come. Political stability is on the increase all over South America, and public financial responsibility of the southern countries is practically assured. Isolated, small, private capital investment is not yet recommended, however. Large scale, corporate investment is much more advisable. To Americans seeking their fortune it may be said that the men chiefly desired at present are those technically trained in the various branches of engineering civil, electrical, and mechanical. And in Argentina at least our agriculturists are looked upon most favorably. To the American in general seeking his fortune I am confident that the opportunities are better now, and for some time to come, in the United States and Canada, and that in the long run the comforts of life-what the economist would call "consumer's surplus"-will be found greater in the United States and Canada.

The English and especially the Germans, it is true, are going to South America, but remember that Germany, in an area no larger than New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, is supporting a population of over 65,000,000, or three times the population that those states are supporting and we consider them crowded. Conditions due to dense population similar to those of Germany prevail in England.

The young American, with a love for travel and adventure, the American with technical training, the American engaged in foreign trade, or seeking to engage in foreign trade, may be advised to go, if he is assured of a definite opening. Other Americans before going may well consider.

NOTES AND REVIEWS

The American Occupation of the Philippines, 1898-1912. By JAMES H. BLOUNT, Officer of United States Volunteers in the Philippines, 1899-1901, United States District Judge in the Philippines, 1901-1905. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Fifteen years have passed since the guns of Commodore Dewey announced the birth of our Philippine problem. These years have been full of incident and the historian has been called upon to record events vastly different from those of our earlier history. Our army was suddenly compelled to conduct a campaign seven thousand miles from its base. Our naval and military officers were drafted in as diplomats during the months of uncertainty and indecision which only ended in a bitterly fought insurrection. Then when the organized forces were scattered, came months of less glorious and more nerve-wracking guerrilla warfare. And, finally, untrained civilians were sent out to meet and solve vexed problems of tropical administration. For six years a peace unknown in their history has reigned in the islands, and along all lines marked progress has been made.

The time was ripe for a careful study of the work of the Americans in the Philippine Islands. The American people have known little and apparently cared less about what has occurred there. During the insurrection considerable material, generally of a critical nature, was published in this country, and in the political campaign of 1900 an attempt was made to interest our voters in the general question, but with no apparent success. So the announcement of a work entitled The American Occupation of the Philippines, 1898-1912, was bound to be hailed with interest by students of our work in those islands. The author, moreover, Mr. James H. Blount, had served there as a lieutenant in the volunteers and later for three and a half years as a judge of the Court of First Instance (not as a United States district judge, as the title page indicates), so, apparently, he was well qualified for his appointed task.

Mr. Blount's work, however, is not a history of the American occupation. It is instead a clever piece of special pleading designed to support the author's contention that the Philippine

peoples are prepared for and entitled to independence and that "what is needed is a formal legislative announcement that the governing of a remote and alien people is to have no permanent place in the purposes of our national life." If it is borne in mind that the volume is largely concerned with opinion and with material to support the thesis and that it does not offer a comprehensive view of the events of the past fourteen years, then the reader will doubtless derive no little suggestion and information from its pages. It is to be regretted, however, that a volume with so comprehensive a title, will probably be accepted at its face value.

An analysis of the work will indicate more clearly the reason for this criticism. Of the 655 pages, 185 deal with the conditions during and after the Spanish War; 158 describe campaigns during the insurrection, principally those in which the author participated; 225 describe certain events since the establishment of civil government in 1901; and 84 are concerned with general considerations, including a bitter attack upon the late secretary of the interior, the Honorable Dean C. Worcester. In the discussion of the events of the past eleven years 50 pages are devoted to the brigand rising in Samar, and yet not a page throughout the entire volume is given to any account of those constructive works which have won for our administration in the Philippine Islands the admiration of all trained observers. After almost 500 pages of indiscriminate criticism we come upon this first reference: "We can point with pride to many things we have done in the Philippines, the public improvements, the school system, the better sanitation, and a long list of other benefits conferred" (p. 495). Surely an account of the American occupation of the Philippines, 1898-1912, might well be expected to contain, within some 650 pages, more than three or four scattered sentences in description of the schools, the hospitals, the model prisons, the roads and bridges, the vigilant quarantine, the struggle against preventable diseases, the work of scientists to protect human and animal life and to increase the production of the soil, the pacification of the wild tribes, and the other activities of trained Americans inspired with an unusual sense of devotion to their work and of belief in their ability to help a less favored people.

If the subject matter fails to fulfill the promise of the title it also falls short of the authority implied by the frequent footnotes and citation to sources. A frequent offense is the use of italics, in quotations, which at times may alter the sense of the original