Dominating the early decades of Spain's New World settlement was the question of how best to apportion the fruits of conquest. Colonists urged Repartimiento General, the division among worthy settlers of all lands in señorio and all indians in hereditary encomienda. Only aristocratic rewards, they claimed, could attract men of quality to the New World. Only caballeros could hold colonies already won and conquer more lands for Spain. Yet, if such demands were met, the Crown could expect little profit from its colonial empire, however large and secure.

Quito was an international trading city in the late sixteenth century. It was one of several commercial centers strung along the Andes that aided in the adaptation of Old World economic techniques to New World resources. By the 1580s, agricultural and manufacturing surpluses had helped Quito emerge as a dominant trading center in western South America, second only to Lima and Potosí.

The years between the election of Manuel Montt as President of Chile in 1851 and the outbreak of the War of the Pacific in 1879 were years of considerable expansion in the Chilean economy despite occasional setbacks which were generally followed by renewed prosperity. Government activity assisted this growth: Montt's administration, in particular, passed laws and followed policies designed to help commerce and industry and to establish the infrastructure of a modern economy.1 However, the country's increased wealth came from greater production for export in the traditional economy, using largely traditional methods, rather than through technical innovations or the introduction of new industries. The export sector fuelled the republic's growth; not only did export receipts pay for imports, but they provided the guarantee for foreign loans, while the Government secured the bulk of its revenues from duties levied on exports and imports.

The 1868 presidential election in Argentina repays attention on a number of counts. It was the first time that the efficacy of the formal constitutional machinery evolved in 1860 had been put to the test. It was unusual in that the result was not, on the one hand, a foregone conclusion, a mere legitimation of a choice that had already been made, nor, on the other, disputed by force of arms. It also marked a change of direction for the political elite, although the consequences of this would not work themselves through the political system until the 1870s. It is unnecessary to labour the manifold changes in Argentina in the early 1870s: massive immigration, the full impact of the railways, the beginning of the “golden age’ of British investment, the integration of Argentina into a world economy were complemented in the political sphere by the end of the Paraguayan war, the death of Urquiza, the last great caudillo, the failure of the last important separatist movement (the rebellion of López Jordán in Entre Ríos during 1870–3) outside the capital and of the porteño separatist revolt under ex—President Bartolomé Mitre in 1874.

The economic role of the Brazilian State has received much attention recently from economists. Those who have studied it generally assume that the State first became economically active on a large scale after 1930 when it fostered industrialization. They also assume, often implicitly, that politicians and bureaucrats have had a great deal of freedom of action in policy formulation and that greater state economic intervention increases national independence from foreign markets and capitalists.1

The subject of this study is the controversial territorial claim concerning British Honduras or Belize,1 a coastal strip some 174 miles long and about 70 miles broad at its widest point, lying on the eastern seaboard of Central America between 15° 54' and 18° 29' north latitude, and 88° II' (or, including the offshore islands, 87° 28') and 89° 13½' west longitude. 2 Its area of 8,867 square miles is roughly equal to that of Wales or twice the size of Jamaica. It is the second smallest political division on the American continent, being slightly larger than El Salvador, the smallest Latin American State.3 It is bounded on the north and north-west by Mexico, the boundary following the Hondo river; on the south and west by Guatemala, the southern boundary being the Sarstoon river; and on the east by the Carribbean Sea.4