First and foremost, there is the character of the Government itself to be considered. Venezuela, like most of the rest of Latin America, has suffered much at the hands of a military-political class, whose one method of acquiring and retaining power has been that of force; while, once installed in the places of authority, the members of that class have devoted most of their time to acquiring wealth and power for themselves, and little or none to the task for which they have been “elected” (in theory) by the people. To such an extent were the doctrines of this class general that it had been found impossible to persuade good men and true to take control of the national finance, those fitted to do so knowing well that any attempts at reform on their part would at once be thwarted by their self-seeking colleagues in the Ministry, to whom adequate public control of expenditure would be abhorrent. Nor can the republic be blamed for the existence of this class, whose traditions are merely a slightly exaggerated copy, of those of the early Spanish aristocratic colonists, who deemed it derogatory to work, but thought it no shame to exist upon the forced labour of others; with the break-up of slavery conditions, which occurred before their actual abolition, these men and their descendants, often not of pure Spanish blood, preferred political intrigues and the leadership of revolutions to honest work, and until recent years this caste has held the government in the majority of the Latin-American republics. The belief in the disgrace of labour is not common to any age or any country among men of a certain type, but the class who hold these views have held more power and have been more numerous in South America than in Europe, unless we go back some three or four hundred years to the days when “gentlemen” were supposed to live like the lilies of the field, with an occasional fight at other people’s expense to relieve the monotony of existence. Early in the history of Venezuela’s independence an abortive attempt was made, in the election of Doctor Vargas to the presidency, to counteract the evil influence of the military politicians of the revolution, but Mariño and his friends, whose names should surely be reviled by every true patriot in Venezuela, made the succeeding chaos inevitable, and it may be doubted if the spirit which revealed itself in the election of Vargas in 1834 attained such prominence again until the time of the Matos revolution, which was an attempt (in 1902) of the people of Venezuela to do away with the military power by defeating it on its own ground. That revolt failed, but it is noteworthy that the supporters of the present régime were prominent among its leaders.