The long newspaper accounts of President Coolidge's award in the Tacna-Arica dispute neglected to mention the most interesting aspect of the whole matter. They failed to point out the economic background of the struggle. Two thirds of a century ago the desert provinces which later bred war and whose present place as a storm center of controversy was emphasized by the award, were regarded as worthless, and the boundary lines of Chile, Peru, and Bolivia in that territory were but roughly defined. Then the spread of scientific farming methods, and the inadequacy of the South American guano deposits to meet the demand for fertilizing nitrates, led to the discovery and exploitation of the vast desert deposits in the Tacna-Arica districts.
The war which followed between Peru and Chili over control of this new source of wealth is mentioned by Robert Bakeless in his prize essay on the economic causes of war as a clear example of the place of economic factors in stirring up armed conflict. The operations between Chili and Peru which terminated with the Treaty of Ancon in 1883 no doubt support his main thesis; but the settlement of the present dispute by the United States reveals its inadequacy. Economic rivalry may be a source of bitterness and quarrel; but that without more ado war will inevitably result from such rivalry is not true.
Warfare is more a result of a state of mind. Certainly this observation was proved true by the United States during the World War. A bellicose attitude may have its origin in economic rivalries, such as the Chili-Peru nitrate quarrel, but often it is likewise the cause of economic rivalries. During what Seelye calls the second hundred years war between France and England it was a belligerent attitude that sought expression in economic and political rivalry, as much as it was economic rivalry seeking solution in warfare. It is the hope of the future that these states of mind can be resolved through the legal channels of arbitration and judicial settlement, rather than through the extra-legal methods of warfare. The State Department's work on the Tacna-Arica dispute lends one more grain of plausibility to that hope.
