With the triumph of Flores (1865) the Whites lost their political supremacy, and the liberal party regained its old position. Flores protected commerce, rebuilt the cities destroyed by so many wars, and built railways; his dictatorship terminated in 1868. The leader of the Reds returned to the Presidency from 1875 to 1876, and his party established itself more firmly. Despite fresh revolutions, it did not yield up the government, and effected great social reforms. Another _caudillo_, the present President, Don José Battle y Ordoñez, is, by virtue of his liberal creed, his influence, and the daring of his political programme, an eminent personage amidst the sordid {133} quarrels which divide the populations of America; he has inherited the authority of Rivera, Flores, and Lorenzo Battle. The modern Uruguay is born of the struggle between the two traditional parties: a small nation with an intense commercial vitality, like Belgium and Switzerland. A harmonious republic, it has not overlooked, in its material conquests, the suggestion of Ariel. An admirable master, José Enrique Rodo, has established a chair of idealism at Montevideo. Immigration, a surplus[1] in the budgets, a strict service of the internal debt, an increasing population--in short, all the aspects of economic progress--go hand in hand with the spread of education, the abundance of schools, the importance of journalism, and the moral vigour of a younger generation, which is ambitious for its country, and anxious that Uruguay shall play a noble part upon the American stage. The most advanced laws--divorce, suppression of the death penalty, a code protecting workers, separation of Church and State--give the development of Uruguayan civilisation a markedly liberal aspect. Miscegenation decreased after the destruction of the Charruas, and the race is more homogeneous and keenly patriotic. The enthusiasm of the Uruguayans has baptized Montevideo in the name of New Troy, for the possession of this impregnable city was, in the _Iliad_ of America, the ambition of every conqueror: it was the refuge of the pilgrims of liberty, of ambitious foreigners, of Argentine Unitarians, and of a romantic soldier, Garibaldi. When the peoples of America, weary of civil discord, wish to unify their laws and glorify the heroism of their past conflicts, they proceed to Montevideo, as to The Hague or Washington, in periodical Peace Congresses. In a continent divided by fatal ambitions, the capital of Uruguay preserves the tradition of Americanism. [1] This surplus amounted to eight millions of piastres between 1906 and 1910. {134} CHAPTER V THE ARGENTINE: RIVADAVIA--QUIROGA--ROSAS Anarchy in 1820--The _caudillos_: their part in the formation of nationality--A Girondist, Rivadavia--The despotism of Rosas--Its duration and its essential aspects.