The foreign debt of Chile is in the neighbourhood of $100,000,000, most of which is held by the Rothschild interests. Much of this debt was contracted during the period of military expansion. Great quantities of paper money were issued by various administrations, and, as a result, the peso dropped in value. The gold peso has a fixed value of thirty-two cents in United States currency, and the paper peso is worth about twenty-one cents. The gradual drop in value of the currency has made railroad travel on the government lines and postage the cheapest in South America. It has also prevented much internal development. At the present time a number of cities are installing hydraulic electric plants, which are very practical for this country. Several schemes are under consideration for port developments, of which the work at Valparaiso will be the most important. Concepción, Talcahuano and Corral, Iquique and Antofagasta, will also come in for their share. Several irrigation projects are now being constructed which will add almost two hundred thousand acres of irrigated land suitable for agriculture. The electrification of the state railroad between Valparaiso and Santiago will also doubtless be one of the developments of the near future. The postal and telegraph systems of the republic are good. There are more than one thousand post offices, and the amount of mail transported is very large. Newspapers circulate absolutely free, and domestic postage is lower than in the United States. Foreign letters only cost three cents for postage. There are more than eighteen thousand miles of telegraph wires stretched across the country. A wireless telegraph station has been opened at Valparaiso with a radius of eight hundred miles, and others will be opened very soon at other places, including the Straits district, where the wild and undeveloped nature of the country makes the stretching and maintenance of overhead wires difficult. Like all the South American republics Chile is greatly in need of immigration. With such a variety of climate it could afford congenial homes for people from almost any country. A few thousand of immigrants come in each year, from three to five, but that number is paltry. Tens of thousands could be assimilated if they were agriculturalists. Argentina, with her broad level acres, is too near, and draws twice as many as all the other republics of South America together. Wages are higher there, too, and the Italians and Spaniards, who comprise the greater proportion of those seeking new homes in South America, are drawn there. A few Boer colonies were established in Chile after the war in the Transvaal, but the total number was not large.