CHAPTER VITHE TACNA QUESTION
The Storm Centre.—Indeterminate Position of Tacna.—Peru and Chile.—Boundary Problem.—Guano and Nitrate.—The War of 1879.—Treaties.—Appeal to the League of Nations.—Discussions at Washington.
Tacna is the political storm centre of the Pacific Coast of South America. It is a little province consisting chiefly of sun-bleached desert scored by a few extraordinarily fertile valleys, lying north of the great nitrate area of Tarapacá. It is tilted to the sea, the coast range diminishing to a tawny cliff’s edge, and rises to long interior plains that merge into Andean spurs, with the Bolivian province of Oruro just across the snow-crowned mountain wall. The area is 23,000 square kilometres; the population was estimated in 1919 at 40,000, and counted as a thousand less in 1920, a diminution probably due to the departure of Peruvians.
This territory’s fate has been indeterminate since the close of the War of the Pacific, 1879–83, and with its fertile causes for agitation has been the focus of endless quantities of argument emanating mainly from the former owner, Peru, to whom no solution is declared to be satisfactory but the unqualified restoration of the province. The interest of Bolivia in the matter is also recognised: she has brought her needfor a new outlet to the Pacific before the League of Nations, although without result; and while there is force in the reminder of Chile that Bolivia was able to make little or no use of the Antofagasta littoral while in her possession, and that her great prosperity dates from the time when she lost it and obtained as a kind of solatium an efficient railroad, national pride urges a political group of La Paz to make recovery of a coastal strip one of the planks of the oratorical platform.
Between Bolivia and her two sister republics of the west there is no ill-feeling. She trades freely with both, and in particular has derived a great deal of technical and financial help from Chilean men of enterprise in developing important mining regions. Bolivia’s relations with Peru are equally friendly, although intellectual rather than economic; but the writer’s experience of Bolivia has developed the opinion that Bolivians are extremely unlikely to do what is occasionally urged by the Peruvian press, to take up arms with the object of regaining territory definitely ceded, without question or reservation, by the Treaty of 1904.
The dispute, actually, lies between Peru and Chile. It is utilised by adroit politicians in South America, and farther afield, to divert attention from other inconvenient problems, and the recurrent flurry is a cause of anxiety to the industrialist and investor, whether native-born or foreign, of the West Coast. It demands settlement, and probably could be settled as other territorial questions have been solved, by the exercise of goodwill and discretion and in the spirit of compromise. But the truth is that few public men are sufficiently courageous to adopt a moderate attitude on this subject; the bellicose attitude iseasier and more popular. Inflammatory newspaper articles and speeches upon the subject are rarely of Chilean origin, it is but fair to say; but the situation is a standing invitation to the extremist and the path of the mediator is not smoothed by long postponement.
Arica port, a pretty little oasis in the desert, was the centuries-old outlet for Bolivian products; Potosí’s silver came out in a rich stream during colonial days. Charcas Province, or Alto Peru, afterwards part of the Viceroyalty of Buenos Aires, had no other western port. Forty miles inland lies the old city of Tacna, also succeeding an Inca settlement, and an ancient stopping-place on the highway to the Andes.
The desert, veiled by the strange mist of this region, thecamanchaca, lies all about these little cities; they are connected by an old strip of railway, and there are no other sizable towns. Tarata, in the spurs of the mountains, is reached only by horseback, is chiefly important as head of the department of the same name, and is only a degree nearer modern life than the villages of sturdy mountaineers that cling to the Andean folds above it. Here the llama is still the chief means of transport.
Nitrate has not been found in workable quantities in Tacna province, nor any precious mineral deposits of consequence, although silver and copper are known. The value of the territory, politically unified by Chile as one province, Tacna, 23,000 square kilometres in area, with three departments, Tacna, Arica and Tarata, and the city of Arica as the chief centre of the province, is thus not great, until irrigation permits agricultural development upon a big scale. But strategically it acts as a buffer between Chile and Peru, and it was with the object of erecting sucha buffer that Chile refrained from doing what her dominant position after the War of the Pacific permitted, taking the little provinces finally, at the same time that she secured Tarapacá, a region enormously rich in nitrate.
Peru was obliged to accept definitely the cession of Tarapacá: that loss is beyond discussion. But the indeterminate position of Tacna permits national feeling, irritation and sentiment full sway.
It is common to hear of the old unity of Peru and Chile, of the mutual sacrifices during Independence struggles, their like origin and present intertwined interests. Undoubtedly, the two states are commercially necessary one to the other; the traders of the communities are little disturbed by political aspects and own a brotherly kinship so far as the Spanish language, religion, and culture are concerned. But there are also marked divergences. There has been a much greater proportion of west European blood in Chile than in Peru; the native races were of completely different speech and customs; and climate has done its share in modifying the modern population of each country. It is a serious error to class any two South American peoples together, and the characteristics of Bolivian, Ecuadorian, Peruvian and Chilean are strongly marked. Nor, between Peru and Chile, was cordiality invariably marked in colonial days, from the time when Almagro’s returned followers opposed the Pizarros and were set apart as “Men of Chile.” The dominance, political and financial, of Lima during the three hundred succeeding years in legal, political and religious matters, the use made of Chile as a dumping-ground, and at the same time the endless and unproductive expense in blood and treasure ofthe Araucanian wars, created irritation that was not all on one side.
Peru was rich and proud, Chile and Buenos Aires were comparatively poor: yet from the two latter political independence from Spain arrived, borne upon the swords of San Martin’s army. An ocean of tact has been needed to smooth similar situations in other regions and times, and San Martin’s arbitrary conduct, although objectionable to Chileans and Peruvians alike, did not ease the situation. Later, when South America’s freedom from Spain had become a fact accepted by the world at large, a result due in great measure to Canning’s long vision, the eyes of the new countries turned to their nebulous boundaries. Settlement of the exact frontiers has been so difficult that the disputes and efforts of a century have not, in some cases, yet decided the question. When all was Spain’s, the limits of separate provinces or viceroyalties was of secondary importance; the hinterlands were frequently wooded, mountainous, or desert country, where none but Indians penetrated. It has only been since forestal products such as quinine and rubber were valorised, the worth of the commoner metals enhanced by great industries, that great interior regions of the southern continent have acquired interest, and the marking of boundaries has become a burning question.
In Chile’s case, her area as a province or “kingdom” during Spanish times included the present Argentine provinces of Mendoza, San Luis and San Juan, and all Patagonia. The three first-named provinces went, with Charcas (part of the modern Bolivia), to Buenos Aires when that Viceroyalty was erected in 1776, but the possession of Patagonia and the islands below the Strait of Magellan remained a fertile source of disagreementwith Argentina, narrowly averting war, until 1881. A treaty then made between the two countries fixed a line in the Andes as the boundary, to follow the highest peaks dividing the rivers, while all land south of the fifty-second degree of south latitude went to Chile, except the eastern part of Tierra del Fuego. This agreement was found indefinite; the water-parting and the highest peaks were discovered to be frequently far distant from each other, and the exact boundary was only settled in 1902 when the award of King Edward VII fixed a new line, by which 54,000 square kilometres of the disputed area was assigned to Chile and 40,000 to Argentina. One small point only remains unsettled—the question as to the exact position of the eastern entrance to Beagle Channel, involving possession of Picton, New and Lennox Islands. The senates of Chile and Argentina agreed in 1915 to abide by an award to be made by the British Government.
So much for the eastern boundary. North lay the Desert of Atacama, declared by Darwin to be a “barrier far worse than the most turbulent ocean.” The desert was known from early Spanish times as the boundary of Chile, but while it remained apparently worthless it was to no one’s interest to decide whether the north, centre, or south of the desert formed the line. Peru’s southern limit was fixed as far back as 1628 at 22° 33′ south latitude, the border of Tarapacá, near the present port of Tocopilla; between the parallels of twenty-two and twenty-five was the old Province of Atacama, extending from Tocopilla southward, including then but one port, Cobija, and all the large northerly part of the Atacama Desert. In 1770 Dr. Cosme Bueno, the Chief Cosmographer of Peru, wrote in the valuableConocimientos de los Tiemposthat “Peru extendsto 25° 10′ in the centre of the Atacama desert, and here touches Chile”—Atacama then, as part of Charcas or Alto Peru being included in the Peruvian Viceroyalty—and in 1776 the northern edge of Chile seems to have been accepted as touching the little town of Paposo, in almost the same latitude. But that there was haziness regarding the precise border is indicated by the fact that Fitzroy’s map of 1836, and Ondanza’s of 1859, and that of Pissis, 1860, all show differing boundary lines for northern Chile. Had the Paposo latitude been definitely accepted by Chile and her sisters, it is inconceivable that Bolivia would have failed to denounce energetically in 1866 the Chilean claim to territory as far north as parallel 23.
By this time the South American countries were prosperous in the huge development of commerce with the world at large, and the West Coast had entered upon a new era; there was an enormous extension of copper and silver mining, guano was feverishly exploited by Peru with great profit from 1841, and there was a developing business in nitrate, shipped chiefly from Iquique and Pisagua, in Tarapacá. In the attack by Spain upon Peru the four countries of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile were united in resistance, and causes for trouble appeared remote. It was now that a glimpse of the hidden wealth of Atacama was revealed. Two enterprising Chilean engineers, Ossa and Puelma, seeking copper in the burning desert, obtained from President Melgarejo of Bolivia a wide concession to operate in the territory, which was neither surveyed nor utilised by Bolivians at that time, commerce to and from Bolivia still following the Arica, or Arequipa and Mollendo, route. With industrial development in sight the question of boundaries became acute, and Chile laid a formal claim to all land south of parallel 23.
Bolivia admitted the prevailing lack of certainty concerning limits by compromising; Chile’s boundary was fixed at 24° s. l., while the two countries were to share customs receipts from the belts 23° and 24°, and 24° and 25° s. l. The arrangement did not work well, and was eventually revised in 1874 and a new arrangement made by which Bolivia agreed not to levy taxes upon Chilean industries, nor to impose new customs dues on exports for the next twenty-five years.
For meanwhile a great development was taking place. In 1870 the silver mines of Caracoles were discovered, a rush to the locality ensuing. With 4000 claims recorded and a tremendous stream of miners, transport was needed, and a British-capitalised and operated company registered in Chile, the Cia. de Salitres y Ferrocarriles de Antofagasta, took over the rights granted originally to Ossa and Puelma, built a port at Antofagasta and a railway to the mines, and was also presently working newly discovered fields of nitrate in the same once-despised territory. Its concession was extensive, covering all the great Salar del Carmen, and something like a boom in nitrate followed; engineers poured into Atacama, and in Tarapacá the energies of foreign companies, chiefly Chilean and British, began to alarm Peruvians, who saw the supremacy of guano threatened. Peru and Bolivia formed a secret pact (1873), of defensive military alliance, and later tried to legislate against the foreign companies. The Peruvian President, Dr. Pardo, decided to make nitrate a government monopoly, passed a law enforcing the acquisition of all nitrate works and strictly limiting its output, while President Daza in Bolivia first rented all the undeveloped nitrate deposits in Antofagasta to Henry Meiggs, an American railroad builder in Peru, and, disavowing the agreements made by Melgarejo,decreed a duty of ten centavos per hundredweight on all nitrate exported. Both Bolivia and Peru were, it is frequently contended, within their rights in making laws dealing with their own territory: the duty suggested by Bolivia was, it is true, but a fraction of what the industry subsequently yielded. But the developing companies were exasperated at what they considered attempts to revoke rights already conceded, and to stifle nitrate production in Antofagasta. The fact that Bolivia and Peru were financially embarrassed following periods of internal disturbance and large spending did not ease the situation.
Trouble might have been averted with mutual concessions had it not been for the high-handed act of Bolivian officials who, in December, 1878, demanded a large sum in back taxes from the Antofagasta company, and upon the refusal of the English manager, ordered the seizure of the company’s property. The match had been set to the gunpowder. Chile immediately seized the ports of Antofagasta, Cobija and Tocopilla, and by February, 1879, all the Bolivian coast was in Chilean hands militarily as, previous to that time, it had been in Chilean hands economically.
Peru offered to mediate, suggesting neutralisation of Antofagasta port under the triple guarantee of Bolivia, Chile, and Peru, and new disposition of the territorial revenues; but Chile, aware of the secret treaty of 1873, demanded first the abrogation of that pact, and next the cessation of all warlike preparations by Peru and a declaration of her neutrality. Peru declined, and war was declared upon her in April, 1879.
At this time the population of Peru and Bolivia jointly was double that of Chile, and she was comparatively a poor country, without either mineral orgreat agricultural wealth. But the Chilean navy was excellent and her men were hardy campaigners and fighters, as Peru, aided by Chilean troops in the war of independence and at the time of the forcible seizure of Peruvian territory by Santa Cruz in 1837, well knew.
The course of the war was disastrous from the beginning to the two allied states. Bolivia was never able to recover a foot of the coastal strip, and was forced to confine her efforts to contributions of men and material in the series of battles in which Chilean armies were almost invariably successful. When Chile had broken the small naval power of Peru by the sinking of the ironcladIndependenciaand the capture of theHuascar, the allies had but two wooden vessels, thePilcomayoand theUnion, with which to defend the coast. The former was taken late in 1879, the latter evaded seizure until the end of the war: but practically the sea-ways were in control of the Chilean navy, headed by theBlanco Encaladaand theAlmirante Cochrane, two British-built ironclads, as well as six smaller armed vessels, six months after the war began.
Sea control rendered all the Chilean forces mobile. They were henceforth able to strike at any given spot with speed and certainty, while the harassed allies were obliged to transport troops across deserts to a score of poorly supplied coastal points; they were further hampered in December, 1879, by the strange flight of President Prado from Peru, and the Bolivian Revolution which deposed President Daza. The new leaders in Peru and Bolivia, Pierola and Campero, could not stem the tide of disaster; by February, 1880, the Chileans held the littoral as far as Arica, and in April began the nine-months’ blockade of Lima’s port, Callao, together with Ancon and Chancay. Inland theallies held out, notably at Tacna, captured after a desperate struggle at the end of May. Arica was finally taken in June, the north coast held in submission, and the blockade of the chief ports rigorously maintained. This war was the first in which torpedos and torpedo-boats were actively employed, and while the new inventions enabled Chile to carry out naval operations with marked effect, Peru did her best to protect Callao by mooring hundreds of torpedos in the bay, and succeeded in blowing up two Chilean ships, theCovadongaand theLoa.
North American attempts at mediation resulted in October, 1880, in Chile stating her terms—the cession by Peru of Tarapacá, the relinquishment by Bolivia of all claims upon the coast, and payment of an indemnity; and occupation by Chile of Tacna, Arica and Moquegua until the first-named conditions were carried out. Years later, after much more bloodshed, ruin and misery, the allies accepted terms practically similar; but they rejected them in 1880, and Chile organised for the taking of Lima. After a fierce battle in which the Chileans are said to have lost 1300 and the Peruvians 6000 dead, the capital was captured in January, 1881, and occupied by Chile until terms were arranged by the Treaty of Ancon in 1883. This arrangement was made only between Chile and Peru, followed by a truce with Bolivia in 1884 and a definite peace treaty signed in 1904.
Chile has been blamed for making hard terms with the two sister states, but the fact is undeniable that despite the struggle made by the allies, to which Chilean historians have frequently given credit, they were utterly out-fought. Chile was completely victorious on sea and land, and she took the fruits of victory; she had, she considered, been menaced, and she disposedof future menace. If she was severe, she had many great examples to follow. It is at least a little curious to find the United States, with the record of acquisitions of Mexican territory, constantly raising a minatory finger to Chile. This finger appeared during the progress of the War of the Pacific, and upon several subsequent occasions including a curious incident in 1920, when a flutter of local feeling on the West Coast was made the occasion of a tactless message from the State Department. These admonitions are resented by and are embarrassing to no one more than Americancomerciantesand miners operating in Chile. It is unfortunate both for the United States and the peace of the West Coast that a non-comprehension of Chilean intentions and sentiment should not only add fuel to the flame, but should keep alive ideas of forcible intervention in the minds of the losers in the war, encouraged to contemplate restoration of part of their former territory.
It is, however, not the finally ceded provinces, but the uncertain status of Tacna, that causes the chief heart-burning. The terms made with Bolivia gave Chile her present great province of Antofagasta, with its wealth in nitrate, silver and copper, but in order to conciliate Bolivian feeling and legitimate commercial ambition, Chile agreed to build, and built, a railway outlet from La Paz to Arica, the Bolivian section of which will become Bolivian property in 1928. Bolivian prosperity dates from the operation of this excellent line, and Chilean commercial and financial relations with Bolivia have been increasingly cordial. I have yet to see in any Chilean publication or to hear from any Chilean expressions of other than the greatest goodwill to Bolivia; it is almost equally the rule to encounter a sincere desire for the amicable settlement of outstandingquestions with Peru, and the display of a frank and moderate appreciation of Peruvian feeling. But while Bolivians in general have accepted their loss, for Peru the war is not yet over. This is chiefly due to the Tacna barrier.
Tarapacá, rich in nitrate and metals, was ceded to Chile absolutely, but the little provinces of Tacna and Arica went under Chilean control with the proviso that a plebiscite, to determine by popular vote the final ownership of the region, should be held after ten years—i.e., after 1894; the gainer of the territory promised to pay ten million pesos to the loser. This plebiscite has never been held.
In 1894 the two countries mutually agreed to a postponement, and attempts to hold the plebiscite later have been frustrated by the difficulty of arranging voting conditions. Questions as to the nationality of the persons permitted to vote, and of the constitution of the tribunal of judges, have long awaited solution. Chile has repeatedly declared that the Chancellery of the Moneda is ready to hold the plebiscite, and meanwhile occupies and develops the territory, creating irrigation systems and planning vast extensions of sugar and cotton production. Since there were in 1907 in Tacna out of a total of 25,000 people only 4000 non-Chileans, it can scarcely be doubted that the result of a plebiscite held, let us say, in 1923, would leave Tacna definitely under the Chilean flag.
In November, 1920, Peru and Bolivia asked the League of Nations assembled at Geneva to examine the treaties signed with Chile in 1884 and 1904—with a view to obtaining international influence in the direction of modification of terms. Peru afterwards withdrew her request, while the commission appointed to consider Bolivia’s case came unanimously to the conclusionthat no intervention was possible in the case of a definitely signed treaty, handing down this decision in November, 1921. But the Chilean delegate, Don Agustin Edwards, made it clear that Chile was always ready to discuss amicably with Bolivia any suggestion for the economic improvement of Bolivia’s position compatible with Chilean interests, and the way was paved for friendly discussions.
Shortly afterwards Chile made a direct offer to the Peruvian administration (in the absence of diplomatic representatives) that the plebiscite should be held in accord with the terms agreed upon during discussions in 1912, when 1923 was fixed as the voting year. Peru did not find this suggestion acceptable, in view of the fact that Chileanisation of Tacna proceeds with such rapidity that the Peruvian vote would be practically non-existent. All children born in the province since 1883 are counted as Chilean citizens, and the exodus of adult Peruvians from this and other regions has been marked since 1920, when a sudden access of local friction brought about the mutual withdrawal of consular officials.
At this moment, when it seemed unfortunately probable that the new attempt at settlement would meet with the fate of previous efforts, the United States interposed with the suggestion that representatives of Peru and Chile should meet for friendly discussions in Washington. This offer was accepted by both Lima and Santiago, and delegates were appointed in early 1922.
Peru wished to re-open the whole Treaty of Ancon, but Chile emphatically declared that only the terms of the Tacna plebiscite were matters for discussion; she also declined Bolivia’s request to take part in the meetings, although reiterating her readiness to exchange views directly with Bolivia.
Conversations between the able diplomats of the two countries took place in Washington during May, 1922, but without a decisive result, the delegates announcing early in June that no agreement concerning the holding of the plebiscite in Tacna had been reached.
The break-up of the conference appeared to be inevitable when the United States Government, in the person of Mr. Hughes, Secretary of State, offered to exchange its position of benevolent host of the delegates to that of mediator. An interchange of suggestions took place between Chile, Peru and the United States, ending in a hopeful agreement signed by the two former in July; this agreement terminated the first stage of the road to peace, and practically amounted to the acceptance of arbitration.
The immediate question laid before the American arbitrators is whether or no the plebiscite should be held, and, if so, upon what terms the voting should take place. But it was further agreed, Chile cheerfully accepting a Peruvian suggestion, that if a decision should be reached precluding a plebiscite, nevertheless negotiations should be continued under United States auspices, with a view to another form of settlement.
At the time of writing, a close study is being made in Washington of the historical, political and economic aspects of the situation, and an interval of some months must take place before any decision is announced. But the outlook has undoubtedly been lightened by the very fact of amicable discussions having taken place between the delegate of the two countries, and a newer and more friendly atmosphere promises the lifting of the forty years’ old shadow.