Evening star., 1898-05-28

@ Sned" VI tne country are tns pure WMtes.
These are very few. Nowhere in the world
Will You find sucn a condition as has al
ways existed in this country. There are in
Peru about three million people, or about
as many as in the Greater New York. OF
these 81 per cent are pure Indians and
about G5 per cent are of mixed races, COM
ing from the union of thu Indians and the
negro ex-slaveS and of the Spaniards and
Indians. Not one man in five is pure white,
and of these whites there have always been
a select few who have practically owned
the country.
The story of Peru and it's Spanish owners
shows how poorly the Spaniards are fitted
to govern people or build up nation. Ths
storyof Cuba is rot new one. When Pizarro
came here and conquered the IEcas he found
a high state of civilization. Peru was then
supporting a population of from ten to twen-
ty millions The Andes were cultivated to
their tops, and what is now largely desert
was by a system of fine aqueducts and canals
rich farms. The masses of the people then
as now worked for their rulers, but the
laws were such that every one was we'll fed
and housed. and by a system of public
sranaries there was want. There was
plenty of gold and silver, but neither metal
was used as money, and the people, in fact,
90 not seem to have had money. They were
hard working and peacaf full when the Span
iards invaded them and took away the rich
est booty that one nation ever got by op-
pressing another. From one Inca temple
Pizarro took 1900 pounds of gold and
S2c00 pounds of silver. The silver nails in
one temple weighed 22,O00 ounces. You re-
member the room half full of gold which
the Inca king gathered for him as a ran
sem. They collected vast quantities of the
precious metals from the cities temples
and palaces in other parts of the country
ana made Spain rich for a century more.
Ihey enSlaved the people and made them
work for them, and later on brought Afri-
cans and other slaves in to aid them in the
mines and on their plantations. They had
mere the richest silver mines known, when
silver was at par with gold, and for centu-
lies fairly rolled in wealth. In addition to
this they had the vast labor capital of the
Indians.
The civilized Indians of Peru are not
aeeumuiaters They do not care for more
tran the day, and they are willing to
work hard for just enough to support them
selves and their families. These peopl,
even after slavery was abolished, continued
to labor for the whites. They are very
GOOD class of workmen, and had they been
handled by English or any other Anglo
Saxon combination Peru would still be the
Wealthiest country of this hemisphere I'm
der the Spaniards the area of cultivated
land became steadily less, the popua ton
fell OF, and there is not one-th!rd as
many people here now as when Pizarro
came The roads, Notwithstanding modern
inventions. are not as good they were in
the days of the Incas, and the condition of
the common people is very much worse.
How Chile Looted Peru,
Stin the spanish PeruV1anS up until the
war with Chile remained rich. The silver
mines of Cerro de Pasco turned out vast
sums and the government revenues were
SO large that there good picking for
every one with any kind OF u pull. One OF
the vioeroys of the eleventh century rode
f1om his palace to the cathedral in Lima
over path paved with ingots of solid sill
ver. His horse was shod with shoes of
and tail was strung with pearls
Later on, to the wealth of the mines
was added that of the guano, and
Peru got hundreds of millions of dollars
out of her manure piles. This source of
wealth was being worked when the great
nitrate fields were discovered and in 1878
Peru exported $17,50O,GU0 worth of nitrate,
which in the then value of silver was
worth nearly twice much all her
exports in 1896 The total exports that
year were S4,O0O00 and the government
receipts from suano and nitrate and other
sources were more than $11,OOOOO0. Then
the Chileans. who were poor, cast their
covetous eyes upon these riches. They
trumped up an excuse for war about their
boundary lines and invaded the country
Tfey had about 25.GO0 men, and they laid
Peru waste, demanding ransom of various
sections and destroying everything when
1t was not granted. At Chimbote, north Of
fere there was a sugar factory and rail-
read shops filled with fine machinery i'm
ported from the United States. The Chilean
general demanded that the owners should
pay him SIJO, 600 in three days They could
not and he blew up the machinery with
dynamite, destroyed the beautiful houses
of the haciendas and killed 500 sheep
which his soldiers could not carry off The
Chilean army destroyed the magnificent
residences at the summer resorts below
Lima. In their fights they gave no quar-
ter, bayonetting not only the wounded SOL
diers, but the defenseless civilians as we'll
Trey looted Lima, taking the university
for barracks and destroying the archives.
They also sacked the public library, which
contained $1,000 volumes and MANY val
liable manuscripts They even robbed the
geological garden, sending an elephant to
Chile. They cleaned out the palace and
the treasury and collected millions in the
way of customs, getting SOS, OOOO in one
year from that source alone The war
lasted for nearly three years and when 1t
was closed by the cession to Chile of the
nitrate territory, which she coveted Peru
had been raked by the Chilean soldiers as
with fine tooth comb. and nearly every
thing of value taken away. / understand
that the Chileans have now about used up
all that they stole and that they are MAX
ing trouble with the Argentines in the hope
of another great haul. Since then Peru
has had number of revolutions such as
1 have described and between the upper
and neither mill stones of personal politics,
the people have had little chance to do
ANYTHING but keep out of the way of ths
bullets.
The President and the Church.
Since Pierola has been president, how
ever the country has been remarkably
quiet and the general belief here is that