ROSARIO
It was not my fortune to see Rosario, one of the leading commercial
cities in the Republic, under the most favourable circumstances. During
the few days I was there the weather was all it ought not to have
been--dull and rainy and cold--and the streets, except in a few central
thoroughfares, morasses of mire.
It is a purely commercial town. It puts forward no claim to be artistic
or cultured, and it has no pretensions to be a leader of fashion. All
the men in Rosario are engaged in money-making. There are big offices,
and the business men are at their desks early in the morning and remain
late in the afternoon. Great railway lines converge upon Rosario, and
along the front of the River Parana there are miles of goods sheds and
wharves, with ships lying alongside into which the elevators pour their
streams of wheat. There is the constant shunting of trains, the
shrieking of cranes, and the swinging of derricks.
The workers are the best type of Latins, Italians from North Italy, or
North Catalonian Spaniards or Basques. Other Latins do not get much of a
chance in Rosario. There are a number of Englishmen, but they are
swamped in the total. I made inquiries about the relative merits of
English and Italian working men, and was told that the Englishmen are
superior, two of them doing the work which it generally takes three
Italians to accomplish. But it did not strike me, considering the high
cost of living, that the workers in Rosario are highly paid from an
English point of view. Commerce is frequently held up by strikes.
Indeed, there is probably no place where strikes are so recurrent as in
Rosario.
This is a town which came into existence a century ago as a sort of
military outpost to fight the Indians. Half a century back it was little
more than a village, and in 1870 it had a population of 21,000. To-day
the inhabitants number 200,000. It is a great port for sending abroad
wheat, maize, and linseed; indeed, its exports annually are about
5,000,000 tons. As the country north of Rosario is rapidly being
colonised, and as the town is the up-river port capable of receiving
ocean-going steamers, its continued growth is assured. Though, of
course, I do not forget the gradual silting of the River Plate into
which the Parana flows, and the restraint this is sure to put upon
shipping in the future, Rosario is certain to go ahead. The day is not
far distant when there will be extended railway communication between
Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia; and, as all the lines will pass through
Rosario, it will get the benefit. It is reported that Brazil has coal
mines yet to be exploited, and if this takes place Argentina, which is
much in need of coal, will be one of the principal markets.
I spent an interesting morning in the workshops of the Central Argentine
Railway, which are situated here. They are extensive works, though most
of the engines on the line are brought from England. The majority of the
workmen, naturally enough, are Italians, though the men at the heads of
departments are Englishmen. The goods yard of the Central Argentine
Company is as large as that at Crewe, and is ever busy with the great
freight cars coming in from the west and north. When I was there the
railway station was being transferred to another part of the city so
that passenger and goods traffic could be more expeditiously handled.
Though Rosario prides itself that it keeps its nose to the grindstone in
the matter of money-making, it is not quite neglectful of other sides of
life. There is a fine system of electric tramways. There are huge blocks
of municipal buildings, and imposing banks and theatres; but the law
courts, whilst having a fine exterior, suggested a certain shabbiness to
me because of the weeds that were growing in the courtyards. There is
the usual race-course, and close by there is the Parque Independencia.
And, of course, there is a Plaza San Martin, whilst in other parts of
the town is the Plaza San Lopez, and the Plaza Jewell, presented by an
Englishman who made his fortune in the city. Some distance outside
Rosario is the English suburb of Fisherton, and I noticed that the
Englishmen had fallen into the Argentine practice of calling their
houses after their wives--the Villa Elsie, the Villa Florence, the
Villa Ethel, and so on. As might be expected, there is a golf
course. In the city itself there is a Strangers' Club, of which most of
the members are Englishmen.
[Illustration: THE ROSARIO EXPRESS, CENTRAL ARGENTINE RAILWAY.]
An evidence of the prosperity of Rosario is the way in which land has
increased in value. Plots which in 1885 could have been bought for 2s.
6d. a yard now fetch £200 a yard. On the outskirts of the town, where a
few years back a bit of land on which to build a residence--say twenty
yards by sixty yards--could have been obtained for £5, it cannot be
obtained to-day for less than £150. I saw one stretch on the river front
which was bought twenty years ago for £2,000 and sold last year for
£40,000. Twenty miles from Rosario camp land which a dozen years ago
could have been obtained for £10,000 the square league is not allowed to
change hands to-day for less than £100,000 the square league.
With nightfall the Rosario people give themselves up to pleasure.
Attached to the big hotel there is a huge saloon, and whilst men play
dominoes and cards, music is provided by a band composed of Austrian
girls. There is a great _café chantant_, and every night hundreds of
people, men and their wives, sit at the little tables having meals, or
partaking of beverages, whilst a band plays and comic singers perform,
or a kinematograph entertainment is provided. I saw nothing at all in
Rosario to suggest it was a place of culture. But it is a town throbbing
with commercial activity, and when business is over the people seek
nothing more than the lightest of entertainment.