Page:A history of Chile.djvu/16

. Chile has been more fortunate than her neighbors in having a fairly well established government and a better class of leaders; she has subordinated the military to the civil authority and has usually preferred statesmen to generals for her presidents. Still, she has had at different times quite too much of civil strife for the best interests of her exchequer, industries, commercial interests and national well-being. But she has passed her era of constitution making; she has a body of laws and precedents, a historic past, and patriotic, intelligent citizens; the lesson of the civil war of 1891 is, that the dictators will be no longer tolerated; the government must become more and more popular, representative and constitutional. If Chile's intricate foreign relations do not lead her into wars with neighboring republics, an era of progress and peace is before her. A. U. H.
 * Chicago, 1893.