shareholders, and begin to demand a larger share. A cry of this kind soon becomes general, and when a government has come into power on the strength of popular promises--and to obtain votes and power this condition arises now in South America, as in all other lands--it has to attempt to carry out its promises, and the line of least resistance here is sometimes the foreign corporation. There is one simple remedy which discontented governments and folk here could apply--in purchasing for themselves the shares of the railway companies in the open market, but it does not appear that this legitimate operation is much indulged in. With regard to the native labour, it is to be recollected that there are few (or no) laws to safeguard it from exploitation by the employer. It is only just beginning to learn how to combine in its own interest. As I have shown in these pages, it is in many instances and throughout the whole region often over-exploited. The upper-class employer, the Spanish American, does not lack kindliness and charity, but it is contrary to his custom and outlook to think much of the labourer. The Spaniard and the Portuguese have been oppressive in this connexion throughout history. Strikes in Argentina and Uruguay have of late become very bitter in character, and bloodshed generally occurs. Trains have been derailed and passengers and drivers fired upon. It is to be recollected that labour is not necessarily all of the native stock, but is supplemented by the flow from turbulent Spanish and Italian sources. The poor Iberian or Calabrian comes over with a sense of wrong against society, which in his own lands he often has good reason to nourish, and which he cannot throw aside on this new soil as readily as he may the picturesque native costume of his fatherland. In this respect we might indeed say--_Coelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt_. The great estuary of the River Plate receives in its haven many a discontented emigrant, many an agitator from the Latin lands of Europe, whose social defects, national and individual, by a curious combination of circumstance, many an English home--holder of shares in Argentine and Brazilian railways--is, in a sense, called upon to expiate!