The history of Uruguay has run on different lines since she emerged from the older Banda Oriental. She has been the almost constant victim, until very recent years, of the fervent patriotism of her rural population; in rebellion, often with much apparent justice, against what it has from time to time considered to be the prejudicial doctrinarianism of the town-bred men who have directed her Government in Montevideo. In any case the rural population has always been in a more or less declared state of rebellion against the Government. For many years the “White” party was in power and the “Red” in revolution. Now for a long period the “Reds” have kept place and nominal power, from which until comparatively very recently the “Whites” have never ceased to endeavour to oust them. Let it not, however, be thought that either the retention of power by one party or its attempted overthrow by the other has in Uruguay been due to personal ambition or corrupt greed on either side; as has been, unfortunately but very frequently, the case in other South American Republics. To think this would be to do a cruel injustice to the national character, the leading characteristics of which are uprightness and honesty in thought or deed. No Uruguayan would ever have rebelled had he not thought that the policy of the existing Government was gravely prejudicial to the vital interests of his country, nor would an Uruguayan statesman have ever clung to power unless he had been conscientiously convinced that the policy of his party was the only true way to that country’s best development and prosperity. This may seem to many readers as yet but little acquainted with Uruguayan political and commercial History as the mere expression of an enthusiasm for the Uruguayan character on the part of the present writer. But a closer examination of that History than is within the scope of the present work will show the views just above expressed to be nothing more than a statement of cold fact. In part proof of which stands the total absence from Uruguayan Financial History of any repudiation or avoidance of the National indebtedness. Long periods of Agricultural paralysis, often almost total (in a land which depends exclusively on agricultural products), due to civil strife and all the heavy outlay consequent on such wars, have never led Uruguay to depart from the strictly gold basis of her monetary system. Her paper dollar has always retained its full face value as a token and remains the best dollar on the exchange markets of the world. And the world-wide credit of private Uruguayan firms stands high above that of similar firms in other, even the most prosperous South American Republics. This is due, and due only, to the very high standard of political and commercial morality obtaining, and which has always obtained, in Uruguay.