Moreover, the free islands of the Caribbean Sea might be united in a Confederation of the Antilles, according to the noble dream of Hostos. Greater Colombia might be reconstituted, with Ecuador, New Granada, and Venezuela. Their greatest leaders have desired their union, as a preventive of indefinite and fractional division and internal discord. On the basis {342} of common traditions, and for important geographical reasons, these three nations might form an imposing Confederacy. Once the Canal is open, this group of peoples, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, on the northern extremity of the continent, would form a massive Latin rampart, a country capable of absorbing European emigration and of opposing to Anglo-Saxon invasion the resistance of a vast populated and united territory. Bolivia, the inland republic, deprived of her coast-line by Chili, has already been twice united to Peru; in 1837, under the authority of Santa-Cruz, and in 1879, to oppose the supremacy of Chili on the Pacific. What should henceforth separate it from a people to which it is united by so many historical and economic ties, and a similitude of territory and race from Cuzco to Oruro? Chili and Peru will be either two perpetual enemies, or two peoples drawn together by a useful understanding. Their geographical proximity, their mutually complementary products--the tropical fruits of Peru and the products of the temperate zones of Chili--might contribute to bring them together. Have we not here an actual economic harmony? In the moral domain the very causes which have engendered hatred between Chili and Peru, from the time of Portales to that of Pinto, might equally prove to be the elements of future friendship. Peru, impoverished by the Chilian conquest, and deprived of her deposits of nitre, would no longer be the victim of the Chilian greed of gold, nor the hatred of a poor colony for the elegant vice-kingdom. Chili is wealthier than Peru, and her people have more energy and more will-power, although they may have less imagination, less nobility of character, and less eloquence. The Peruvian vivacity and grace may be contrasted with the prosaic deliberation of Chili; the anarchy of the one country with the political stability of the other; the idealism {343} of Peru with the common-sense of Chili. Physically and morally these two countries complete one another. The economic necessities of each might form the permanent basis of a possible alliance. The Confederation of the Pacific, formed by Peru, Bolivia, and Chili, would be a safeguard against future wars in America. Unhappily Chili professes and seeks to enforce a superiority founded upon victory, just as, when the German Empire was confederated, victorious and warlike Prussia enforced her superiority over artistic Bavaria.