It is the object of the following pages to examine these matters with reference to the Great War, and also to consider generally the bearings of the war upon the development of the Latin-American countries. FOOTNOTE: [1] The reform of 1780-84, which established a quasi-French system of intendentes and subdelegados, need not here be treated. CHAPTER I POLITICAL CURRENTS AND FORCES In estimating the bearings of the great war upon these countries, it is necessary to review certain political forces and currents of public thought, which the Germans have attempted to divert to diplomatic or bellicose ends. Since these influences date in part from the era of independence or even from an earlier date, clearness of vision demands some historical retrospect. When, upon the achievement of independence, schemes of Latin-American or of South American union were found impracticable, it was inevitable that frontier disputes and national rivalries should lead to tension and sometimes to wars between states. When it is remembered that every one of the ten South American republics was divided from several neighbours by frontiers partly traversing half-explored and imperfectly mapped regions, it is perhaps surprising that such questions have been on the whole so amicably settled, and that those which are still pending do not appear to be menacing or dangerous. Owing to the paucity of population on the ill-defined and remote interior frontiers, many of these questions did not become urgent until the latter part of the nineteenth century, when the increasing seriousness of political interests, the steadying influences of material growth, and the pressure of outside opinion favoured peaceful settlement, usually by means of arbitration. It would be possible to compile a formidable list of such disputes. Most of them are questions concerning historical and geographical delimitation, of great local interest, but hardly of world-wide significance, although for a time the world was alarmed lest the frontier dispute of Argentina and Chile should excite a conflict between the two peoples engaged in the development of the south temperate zone, the natural seat of an important trans-Atlantic European civilisation.