SOME ASPECTS OF BUENOS AIRES
The Argentines call their city of Buenos Aires the Paris of the southern
hemisphere. It has a population nearing a million and a half, which is
greater than that of any other town below the line of the Equator. The
people promise that in time it will overtake London.
You insult an Argentine if you mix him up with Chilians, Brazilians, and
other South Americans. He does not thank you for being reminded his
father sailed from Italy, or his grandfather from Spain. He has no
affection for any old land from which his sires came. The beginning of
the world for Argentina was in May, 1810, when the Republic was set up.
He has no pride of historic race. When he makes money and visits Europe
it is not to find the ancestral home in Spain or Italy. It is to have a
good time in Paris. When he takes his family to Paris it is not to spend
three, five, or six months. It is to spend three, five, or six hundred
thousand pesos--and the value of a peso is one shilling and eightpence.
When the pesos have flown he returns to Argentina and makes more.
The Argentines are a dignified people. They accept the English because
in round figures five hundred millions of British capital in gold have
aided in developing the country. They dislike the citizen of the United
States because the big brother Republic of the north patronises them,
and they need nobody's help. They have a contempt for all other Latins
beneath the Isthmus of Panama, particularly the Brazilians. They are
conscious of their own qualities.
And the visitor blinks, and rubs his eyes, and admits the wonders of
Argentina. If his acquaintance with geography is casual he has shrugged
his shoulders at South American Republics, where they have revolutions
every six weeks, and where tawny Spaniards in quaint costumes drive
mules and die from difference of opinion with other Spaniards.
Then he goes to "B.A."--the familiar description of Buenos Aires--and he
finds he has landed in a rampantly modern American-cum-European city.
There is none of the sloth of the Southern, no checking of business
between noon and three to pass in siestas.
It is a busy city. The port is thronged with shipping, mostly British.
High-shouldered elevators stick out long tongues, and streams of wheat,
grown on the plains of the interior, pour food for Europe into the
holds. Trucks of cattle grunt through the noisy railway yards. There are
huge killing establishments, and animals go to their death by the many
thousand every day with a celerity which would awaken a Chicagoan. There
are mighty avenues of chilled and frozen meat. Labour-saving machinery
carries it on board the steamers which hasten across the Atlantic,
carrying cheap beef to the London and Liverpool markets. Commerce is
conducted on the latest scientific lines. The North Americans have
nobbled the meat trade, and the Jews have control of the wheat market.
[Illustration:
_Photograph by H. G. Olds, Buenos Aires._
THE PLAZA HOTEL, BUENOS AIRES.]
Buenos Aires is the mart where the produce of the rich back-lands is
bartered. It levies a heavy toll. The most imposing business buildings
are the banks--national banks, British, German, French, Spanish, and
Italian banks. In and about Reconquista are these banks, ever busy. Near
by are the rival shipping offices, a glut of them. The offices of the
great railway companies are enormous. Wide-spreading premises exhibit
the latest and best agricultural machinery that Lincolnshire and
Illinois can produce. There is the hustle of commerce. The streets are
as narrow and as crowded and as vital as within the City of London.
There is earnestness about the men.
The Argentine is sombre in manner. He dresses in conventional black. A
light waistcoat, a gay tie or fancy socks, is bad form. You cannot tell
the difference between a millionaire and one of his clerks, except that
the former has an expensive motor-car and the latter hires a taxi or a
victoria, or travels by electric tramcar. At every corner you see
evidence of prosperity, of successful money-making. And money speaks in
"B.A." as loudly as it does in New York.
Folk of the Saxon breed tend to scoff at the decadence of the Latin
race. But there is something revivifying in the transplanting of a
people. We have evidence in our own colonies. The man of Spanish descent
in the Argentine is not always the spry fellow he thinks himself; but he
has dropped the cloak of sluggishness which enwraps Spain. He is often
rich; he lives in a gorgeous residence; his extravagances are beyond
those of a Russian archduke. He is polite and hospitable.
But the wealthy Spanish Argentine is not the creator of his own wealth.
I heard of only one case of a Spanish Argentine owing his great fortune
to commercial enterprise. The fortunes of most of these Argentines come
from land. Their grandfathers got immense areas by the easiest means.
Properties were so enormous that extent was not reckoned in acres, or
even square miles, but by leagues. But a hundred leagues, however good
for cattle or sheep, or wheat growing--what was its value a couple of
hundred miles from a port? Then came British railways. They pierced the
prairies. The land bounded in value, tenfold, a thousandfold. Other
people came in; first shrewd Scotsmen; then industrious Italians; then
Englishmen bent on becoming _estancieros_. Their children are
Argentines. But the mighty fortunes are mostly in the possession of the
early Argentines--those who were settled fifty and more years ago. They
have sat still and seen their land blossom in value. They pay no income
tax; there is no tax on unearned increment. Mr. Lloyd George was once
in the Argentine, associated with a land development company. That,
however, is another story.
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants pour into the Republic every year.
They come from every land on earth. Mostly do they come from Spain and
Italy. Italy provides the greatest number, and splendid colonists they
are. Though the language will always be Spanish, the race is rapidly
becoming Italianised. There is a commingling of the sterner stuff from
Europe. So in this rich land--rivalling Canada and Australia in
productiveness--there is being blended a new people, keen, alert,
successful, ostentatious, pagan--a people that has a destiny and knows
it.
The Argentines are town proud. You are not in Buenos Aires a couple of
days before you are bombarded with the inquiry, "Don't you think this is
a beautiful city?" It is not that; but it is an interesting city.
In the oldest quarters the streets are narrow, after the Spanish style.
So narrow are they that, with electric cars jingling along them,
vehicles are allowed to journey only one way. To reach a shop by
carriage it is sometimes necessary to drive along three and a half sides
of a block of buildings. Funny little policemen, brown faced, blue clad,
and with white gaiters and white wands, direct the traffic. In the
Florida--the Bond Street of "B.A."--all wheeled traffic is prohibited
between the hours of four and seven in the afternoon, so that shoppers
may have an easier way.
Most of the streets are called after Argentine provinces, or
neighbouring republics, or national heroes, or some politician or rich
man who can influence the authorities. When a popular man has lost his
popularity the remnant of his fame is obliterated by the street called
after him being named after someone else. It is as though the Government
at home decided to change Victoria Street, Westminster, into the Avenida
Asquith, with the prospect of its being altered later on to the Calle
Bonar Law.
Wide plazas decorate the city. Vegetation is luxuriant, and statues are
numerous. The Plaza Mayo is not called after an Irish peer, but after
the month of May, 1810. The shops are as big as those in London.
Argentina manufactures practically nothing, and all the lovely things
have to be imported from Europe. The hotels are imitations of those in
Paris. The restaurants are on a par with the best we have in London. A
Viennese band plays whilst you have Russian caviare and the waiter is
asking your choice in champagne. But everything is expensive. A man
needs three times the salary in Buenos Aires to live the same way he
would live in London. If you calculate exchange rates you go mad. It is
best to count the peso (1s. 8d.) as a shilling, and then remember that
you are spending your shilling in South America, where things are dear.
You can get a modest luncheon for 10s.; but you will pay 2s. for a
bottle of beer, and 3s. 6d. for a cigar worth smoking.
[Illustration:
_Photograph by A. W. Boote & Co., Buenos Aires._
THE TIGRE, BUENOS AIRES ROWING CLUB.]
Yet nobody minds. Immense sums are being spent on improving
the city. It is built on the American T-square plan. But it is to be
subjected to the plan of Haussmann, with great tree-girt avenues
radiating diagonally from the Plaza Mayo. An underground railway,
honeycombing beneath the town, is in rapid construction. The railways
have a great suburban traffic, and are being electrified. There are
British colonies at Belgrano and Hurlingham, and you have a choice of
three golf courses. In the summer months--December, January, and
February--there is river life on the Tigre, the Thames of the Argentine.
A charming spot is Palermo, a combination of Hyde Park and the Bois de
Boulogne--open sweeps and charming trees, a double boulevard with
statues and commemorative marbles in the middle, well-cared-for gardens,
radiant flowers and the band playing.
A drive through Palermo at the fashionable hour causes one to gasp at
the thought that one is six thousand miles from Europe. Nowhere in the
world have I seen such a display of expensive motor-cars, thousands of
them. Ostentation is one of the stars of life in the Argentine.
Appearances count for everything. You must have a motor-car, even though
you have not the money to pay for it, and you owe the landlord of your
flat a year's rent. The ladies are exquisitely gowned, but they have not
the vivacity of the French women nor their daring in dress. There is a
demureness, a restraint which reminds one that the atmosphere of
far-away Castile is still upon them.
On Sundays and Thursdays there are races at Palermo. The price
Argentines pay for horseflesh has become a proverb. It is a good
race-course. We have nothing in England, neither at Epsom, Ascot, nor
Goodwood, so magnificent as the grand stand. It is a glorified royal
box. The restaurant is like the Ritz dining-room. Everybody dresses as
they would at Ascot. There are no bookmakers. The totalisator is used.
Betting is officially conducted by the Jockey Club, and there is
constant announcement of the amount of money put on the horses. Those
who have backed the winners share the spoil, less ten per cent. As this
ten per cent. is deducted from the total amount put on each race, the
income of the Jockey Club runs into hundreds of thousands of pounds. So
the Club maintains a good race-course, offers capital prizes, has a
house in "B.A."--undoubtedly the most palatial club-house in the
southern world--and distributes the remainder amongst the hospitals.
The income of the Jockey Club is so large it is really embarrassing.
The members are proceeding to build an Aladdin's palace of
super-gorgeousness.
But at the races at Palermo I noticed that no ladies attended, except in
the members' enclosure. Even there they did not mingle with the
men-folk. There was no mirth, such as we are used to in Europe. They
kept themselves to little groups. Moving from wonder to wonder, I was
present at a gala performance at the Colon Theatre. I have seen all the
great theatres in the world, and this is the loveliest--a harmony of
rose and gold. The audience was as fashionably dressed as at the opera
in London, though I missed the dazzling display of diamonds which had
been promised. Most of the audience were ladies; there were boxes of
them, and most of the men were in the stalls. There was one gallery
reserved for women.
I began to discern a strange Orientalism in the relations between the
sexes. The Argentine women are amongst the best mothers in the world.
But there is practically none of the good fellowship between young
fellows and young girls which is so happy a feature of our English life.
For a man and a woman to take a walk together would shock the
proprieties. There are brilliant receptions, but dinner parties, as we
know them, are rare. An Argentine seldom introduces a friend to his
wife. Except amongst the poorest a woman scarcely ever goes into the
streets alone. If she does she runs risk of being insulted. There are
Argentines, who would be offended if refused the name of gentlemen, who
think it excellent sport to walk in the Florida in the evening and
mutter obscenities to every unprotected woman who passes. Buenos Aires
is the most immoral city in the world. So the Argentine guards his
women-folk from contact with other men. His attitude is a relic of the
days when the Moors had possession of Spain.
I have called Buenos Aires a pagan city. So it is. The men are frankly
irreligious. In conversation I have been told of the tolerance to all
religions. What is really meant is indifference to any religion.
Money-making and flamboyant display--these are the gods which are
worshipped. The houses in the wealthier districts are exotic in
architecture. I remember driving along the Avenida Alvear, a street of
palaces, reminiscent of the Grand Canal at Venice if it were a roadway.
But the fine stone blocks are nothing but stucco. The ornamentation, the
floral decorations, are not carved stone; they are stucco. Imitation,
pretence, showiness, the flaunting of wealth, are everywhere.
Yet this city, which has grown in a generation on the muddy flats by the
side of the muddy Parana River, has something that is weird in its
fascination.