In these statistics we have an indication of the great activity that has taken place in the past by the British individual, or joint-stock company in this field, from Mexico to Peru or Chile, from Venezuela and Colombia to Brazil or the River Plate. Wherever we journey in Spanish America, we shall find our countrymen engaged in some important enterprise or industry. If we ascend to the high plateau of Mexico it will be upon an English owned and operated railway, from the coast of Vera Cruz, which we have reached upon an English steamer. If we enter the rich mines here we shall see English capital extracting gold and silver, which flows to London, and other minerals too. If we survey Mexico City, we shall see that it and its lake-basin is drained by a wonderful canal and tunnel, a work which the Aztecs and the early Spaniards tried to perform but failed in, and do we cross from sea to sea over the Tehuantepec Isthmus it will be upon a railway rebuilt, with fine harbours at each approach--a competitor, in some respects, with the Panama Canal--by English engineers and money, whilst the electric lights and trams of the capital are nourished from the same source. (The tramway system, indeed, from the _centavos_ of the travelling Mexican poor, pay or did pay the working costs before nine o'clock in the morning, leaving the rest of the day for the dividends.) In South America we can scarcely take train in any of the numerous Republics without travelling over rails laid down by the genius of Albion, or without helping, in the purchase of our ticket, to contribute towards the exchequer of the British company which built or controls it. When we rise from the Spanish Main to the mountains of Venezuela or Colombia, it is upon lines made by British brains and purses; or when we go up from sea-level to the dizzy heights of the Andes of Peru or Chile, it is behind the iron horse whose trajectory or working has been rendered possible by Britain. The wonderful network of rails that traverse Brazil and Argentina, and bring forth to the seaboard the product of corn, cattle, coffee and all else, were built with gold from Lombard Street, as were the docks and harbours whence they discharge their wealth of products from the hinterland. Again, if we penetrate the dark reaches of the Amazon, England is giving gas light, electric light, water supply, dock service and much else there; and we shall have ascended that mighty stream on an English steamer. Nay, some of the rubber of these forests is extracted by the power of British gold. Banks are largely British. England, in brief, has performed an enormous service in the New World with her money. The United States built itself up on British capital, so that every Republic in America has had cause for gratitude for the use of English gold. England is not a gold-producing country, but nevertheless a stream of gold has proceeded from her shores to nourish the most distant lands.[42] FOOTNOTES: