The economic development of Uruguay was retarded by the corruption of successive governments, by revolutionary outbreaks, by the seizure of farm stock without adequate compensation for the support of military forces, by the consequences of reckless borrowing and over-trading in 1889 and 1890, and also by the transference of commercial undertakings from Montevideo to Buenos Aires between 1890 and 1897.
In support of this decision it was urged that it was no good pursuing people whom it was impossible to catch, that the isolated posts in the interior had not been able to protect the friendly tribes; and that the semi-desert nature of the country did not justify any attempt at economic development.
The policy of the British government was not favourable to the economic development of the newly-acquired country, since it was feared that its prosperity might react against the trade and industry of Great Britain.
In fact the economic development of Asia Minor, a backward but richly endowed land, great in area as Germany herself, had been secured for German enterprise when the first Balkan War intervened.
Profoundly troubled as Algeria was in the last years of the 19th century by the anti-Semitic agitation, which occasioned frequent changes of governors, it appears to-day to have turned aside from sterile political struggles to interest itself exclusively in the economic development of the country.
