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CHILE OF TO-DAY 377 everywhere equally with other languages, shops have English names, the solid commercial houses are Eng- lish or German, and there are English churches, Eng- lish hotels, English professional men, and an English newspaper. In the management of the great business enterprises, the Chilean yields to foreigners. English capital and enterprise have developed the coal mines in the south, the Tarapaca nitrate works in the north, the mines throughout Chile; English capital has built the railroads, or many of them, English engineers have projected the lines, and English employes run them. The government railroads were built from English loans ; England is the civilizer, the taskmaster, the great merchant, the miser, the banker, the usurer of the world. Tarapaca is essentially an English district, Antofagasta and Taltal English towns, while in the south, English and German energy are predominant in Talcahuano, Concepcion and other towns. In the south there are large German settlements; Valdivia and Puerto Montt are essentially German cities. Spanish is spoken with German, at least by the second generation, but it is a verj' corrupt Spanish. The Germans in Chile, as elsewhere, retain their na- tional characteristics longer than other foreigners, and though the children learn Spanish, they continue, gen- erally, to speak the language of their fathers even to the third generation, so that in such towns as Caiiete, Ger- man is spoken as much as Spanish. But they are thrifty settlers and the solid business men and agriculturists of southern Chile, although, be it understood, many of the Chileans are shrewd business men. The great haciendas, vineyards and mines, are usually owned by Chileans, who, however, generally employ foreign over- seers. The peon or roto is the laborer of Chile and his class