Britons' aid to Venezuelans to gain their independence was great, as we have shown. But there has also been financial aid in their national crises of equal importance, which have been met. with as base an ingratitude as their obligations have been dishonourably repudiated.
There can be no disputing that Spain's rule over her South American colonies was odiously selfish, despotic, and unjust. The grievances which South Americans alleged as their grounds of revolt we 1.—Their exclusion from office. 2.—The pride and exclusiveness of the Spaniards.
3.—The Inquisition.
4.—Restrictions on education. 6.—Commercial restrictions.
However bad the Spanish misrule may have been, the benefit of its overthrow is a matter open to argument, considering that it has been followed, in the case of Venezuela in particular, by a chronic state of civil war, which has bred a restless appetite for change which has grown with every fresh revolution. Slavery and the Inquisition were monstrous evils, but chronic revolution and scepticism are equally bad. In reference to this point M. Ducondray Holstein, a French republican and at one time chief of the staff to the Liberator Bolivar, some time after the declaration of Independence, wrote, after referring to the prosperity of Columbia while under Spain: All the wealth, comfort and agreeable society have now disappeared. The greater part of the distinguished families in Venezuela and New canada, have left the country, and the few who remain are ruined. Were the inhabitants ina worse condition under the dominion of Spain, bad as it was, than they are now under the bayonets of the Dictator Liberator?" Considering that 400,000 persons perished in one way or another during the War of Independence, for a staunch republican to have found cause for such a strong argument for a monarchial form of government is cause for grave reflection. cAUSES OF PovERTY.
The reasons that the government is so poor, and always on the borrow as long as Its credit lasted, is put down by the Venezuelans themselves. Although their soil is the richest in the world, and it is self-evident that the bulk of the population is anything but extravagant, the habits bred under the Spanish rule have never been able to be quite eradicated. The illiberality of the Spaniards went so far as to entirely prevent emigration. Nothing was ever done to introduce the cultivation or improvement of any plant or farming. The culture of the vine and olive was prohibited, and that of tobacco was a Crown monopoly. The Creole race are strongly adverse to any form of physical labour or even exercise, and on gaining their independence the first thing they did was to make a clean sweep of all the old yaliing taxes that the Spaniards had relied on for their revenue. Such taxes as liquor excise, income tax on salaries, monopolies on salt, cards, tobacce, were all abolished, leaving only the Customs duties to supply a revenue to the Government. Now it is in these Customs revenues that it is the most easy to defraud the State, as the coast line extends for nearly 2,000 miles, and no adequate preventive service is kept up.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.