TUCUMAN AND THE SUGAR INDUSTRY
It was my good fortune to visit Tucuman in the northern area of
Argentina during the height of the sugar-cane harvest. Here one was
about as near the centre of South America as could be desired. The
vegetation was wildly luxuriant, and seemed to have lapped over into
Argentina from the jungles of Brazil. Here, also, the Latin colonists
seemed to have been left behind, and one ran into a strangely mixed
people, mostly native Indian in origin, but with a tincture in their
veins from the Spanish settlers of centuries ago, together with a
subsequent negro admixture.
I had looked forward to visiting a tropical town, of long streets of mud
shanties heavily thatched, and with innumerable palm trees waving their
plumes overhead. This kind of thing was to be found in the suburbs,
where the Spanish-negro-Indians wore big, rough-made, straw-plaited
hats, and their dusky mates, in bright garments, gossipped in the
shadows, whilst their prolific offspring--often stark naked--gambolled
in the sand. But Tucuman itself is much like other Argentine towns, for
it has its plaza and statues and public gardens, its imposing houses and
hotels and restaurants, its tramcars and electric light.
Tucuman has played its part in the history of the Republic. It was here
that Independence was proclaimed in 1810, when the overlordship of Spain
was repudiated; and it was here that, after much fighting, the treaty of
peace was signed on July 9th, 1816. The house in which this took place
was a modest building, not much bigger than a cottage. Sentiment
prevented it being swept away before the rush for improvement, and so it
has been left standing. But about it has been erected an imposing
structure. Here is a house within a house; and a stout dame conducts the
visitor into a gaunt room where Argentina's first parliament assembled;
where there are paintings of fierce-eyed national heroes, frescoes
depicting the proclamation of Independence, the chair where the first
president of the Republic sat, and in which the visitor is invited to
sit; and there is the customary visitors' book to be signed.
Tucuman vies with Cordoba in having amongst its residents some of the
real old Spanish aristocracy of Argentina. Indeed, Tucuman puts forth
the claim that it has the most beautiful women in South America.
Certainly at the hour of promenade, when the sun begins to dip and
before nightfall comes swiftly, and the people take to walking amongst
the orange trees in the Plaza, or sauntering along the main
thoroughfares inspecting the attractions in the shop windows, there is
no difficulty in imagining that this is a bit of Madrid instead of being
a little-visited town tucked away in the north of Argentina. Several
enthusiastic residents assured me that their ladies were as close to the
fashions as Paris itself. I am no authority on these matters; but I can
say that the womenfolk appeared as well garbed as they are in the
capitals of Europe. Along the clean streets whizzed expensive
motor-cars. Before the restaurants were the little round marble-topped
tables with which most of us are acquainted in European cities; and here
men sat and drank their amer piquant and puffed their cigarettes, whilst
the band played music, ragtime and other, with which we are so familiar
at home.
The main avenue, still in the making, promises to be a gorgeous
thoroughfare one of these days. There is a casino, a theatre (the
Odeon), a palace for the bishop, barracks, a hospital, a brewery which
cost £250,000 to build, and a "Savoy Hotel," where there was on sale
whisky "as drunk in the House of Lords," and where one's admiration was
only checked by finding the telephone system defective.
Tucuman is the centre of the sugar-growing industry. For many miles
around the country is covered with sugar plantations, and the railway
companies have little belt lines running through the cultivated area to
facilitate the gathering of the crop. When I was there in 1913 the
harvest had been the most prolific within knowledge. In places the line
was blocked with wagons piled high with the cane, whilst in several
quarters I heard grumbling that there was not a sufficiency of trucks to
cope with the trade.
[Illustration: A HISTORIC BUILDING: "CASA INDEPENDENCIA" AT TUCUMAN.]
One day, accompanied by several friends, I made an extensive motor-car
trip to the sugar plantations. As soon as we got beyond the town, and
upon the broad road which stretched as far as eye could reach until it
was lost in the shimmer of sunshine, we experienced the inconvenience of
a bad way. With all its excellences, Argentina, as I have before
remarked, has as bad roads as you will find in the world. There had been
no rain for months, and our route was across miles of powdery earth. We
sank into it almost to the axle. We churned up dust so that soon we were
smothered in it. Our faces were almost as grimy as though we had been in
a coalpit. Gaucho horsemen pranced past us in clouds of dust. When we
overtook an ox-drawn wagon it was like pushing through a fog of dust. On
either side the vegetation was profuse and rank, and the terrific heat
of the tropics filled the air with a strong, nauseating aroma.
When we were in the sugar-cane district we saw hundreds of tawny-skinned
men cutting the cane. Armed with an instrument which seemed to be half
knife and half butcher's chopper, the peon seized the top of a cane, cut
it off near the root, gave it a swing in the air, and with rapid slashes
removed the protruding leaves, and then pitched the stalk on one side,
where a heap was lying to be gathered by women and children and carried
to the waiting wagons.
Twice we halted to watch the dexterity of the cutters and to visit the
mud huts. These were picturesque but not pretty. They looked like
disreputable brick-kilns, and although possessed of a door, were
deficient in windows. The interior was dark, but most of the family
spend their time out of doors under the trees, where they have their
fires and prepare maté, the native tea, which is served in a shell and
sucked through a tube. Whenever the natives have nothing else to do you
are sure to find them drinking maté.
Around Tucuman are twenty-five sugar mills, and it is reckoned they
produce 200,000 tons of sugar, of which between 60,000 and 70,000 tons
are exported. We went to the fine mills at San Pablo belonging to Nouges
Brothers, and the senior partner was good enough to show me over the
place, so that I could inspect the whole process, from the arrival of
the cane until the sugar is loaded in sacks ready to be sent to Buenos
Aires.
The stalks, as high as a man, are thrown into a machine which literally
chews them up. As they pass through heavy rollers they crunch and crack,
and yield their juice which runs in a nasty brown fluid into a trough.
Again the mashed-up cane is subjected to further squeezings between
rollers, until practically the last drop of the syrup is squeezed out.
The treacle-like stuff is run into big basins beneath which furnaces are
blazing, and is kept at a simmer until the sugar reaches the consistency
of dough. After that it is sluiced into highly heated steel cups, which
are constantly whirling.
It is interesting to stand by in the sickly-sweet atmosphere and watch
how, in the constant spinning and evaporation from the heat, the stuff
loses much of its brown appearance and becomes, when thoroughly dried,
like the cheap brown sugar as we know it at home. It is further refined
in other hot chambers until it is quite white. Then men with sacks catch
the stream of sugar as it rushes from the mouth of the refinery. Much of
it is spilt, and the men are up to their boots in sugar. But the bags
are quickly filled, pushed on one side, sewn up, hastened on lorries to
waiting carts, which, when loaded, convey the freight to the railway
wagons close by. Señor Nouges told me that at that time his firm was
turning out 175 tons of sugar a day.
The sugar-cane must have plenty of sun and water. The rivers I saw
during harvest time were miserable, shallow streams, meandering their
way through what looked like a broad boulder-strewn bed of what once had
been a wide stream. I was there, however, in the dry season, but was
told that in the rainy season these streams are increased a thousandfold
in volume, are frequently a quarter of a mile wide, and, when the
torrents are heavy, overflow their banks and inundate the land.
Irrigation is carried to a high point, so that in times of flood the
waters of the rivers can be conveyed many miles and utilised in
providing moisture to the cane.
It has only been in comparatively recent years that the possibilities of
the extensive region of North Argentina, of which Tucuman is the centre,
in regard to sugar have been realised. There is the initial expense of
clearing the ground of jungle, and providing irrigation. Once, however,
this has been done, and the cane planted, a paying crop is obtained the
first year. The same roots grow useful stalks for three or four years,
and then comes the process of gradually planting new roots and removing
the old ones so that the same soil can be made productive. Weeds are
numerous, and in the early months of growth these have to be constantly
removed, first of all to prevent their smothering the young shoots, and
secondly to give the cane all the nutriment there is in the soil. There
is also the danger of invasion by locusts, and the occasional
possibility in the cold months--say about May and June--of frost doing
injury to the saplings. Allowing, however, for these disadvantages, the
advance in the sugar industry in Argentina during the last dozen years
has been nothing short of amazing. Still, I could not help feeling that
the industry is only in its infancy. As soon as the foreigner
appreciates what northern Argentina can do--at present most of the sugar
growing is in the hands of Spanish-Argentines--there will certainly be
enormous development. One of the things which will appeal to the foreign
capitalist who takes up sugar growing on an extensive scale is that
there is a quick return on the money invested in development.
Though Tucuman is the capital of the sugar growing interest, it may be
said there are plenty of areas equally favourable for raising the cane.
Sugar growing at Tucuman began about thirty years ago, long before the
railway ever reached the place, and to meet purely local demands;
because in those days the transport of imported sugar, as of other
goods, by cart was expensive. When the railway put Tucuman into near
communication with other parts of the Republic, the possibilities of a
great trade were at once recognised. Tucuman sugar, however, could not
in those days compete, either in quality or price, with that which came
from other countries. It was, therefore, decided to give encouragement
to Argentine sugar growing by a tariff on sugar which came from across
sea. As one who favours the saving of a struggling industry in a home
country from being strangled by vigorous foreign competition, I believe
this was the right thing to do. Sugar growing bounded ahead. Not many
years elapsed before the sugar growers became a powerful combination,
with much influence on the Government. The result was that, whilst at
the start the duty on imported sugar was small, it was gradually
increased until it became prohibitive. Therefore at the present time
very little foreign sugar comes into the country, and the Argentine
industry has gone ahead in a remarkable manner.
Mr. N. L. Watson, in his publication "The Argentine as a Market,"
describes how Tucuman became a veritable El Dorado. Two years sufficed
to give a net return four times as great as the capital invested. As a
natural consequence, labour and capital flowed into the sugar districts.
Lawyers deserted their professions, workmen their tools, to throw
themselves with a regular fever into an occupation so full of promise.
Works sprang up as if by magic, palaces were constructed to house the
staffs, capital was lavished on the industry by individuals and banking
houses alike. While fortunes were being created in the cultivation of
the sugar-cane, orchards, orange crops, pasturage, and arable land were
being either transformed or neglected.
Something like a trust has been formed amongst the sugar growers, with
the object of maintaining prices. But public opinion is becoming so
pronounced that, whilst there is no disposition to let the foreigner
come in and undersell the native production, the tariff should be
reduced in order that there may be more competition between the native
and outside growers, with a slight advantage always given to the
Argentine grower. The Republic is quite capable of growing all the sugar
its inhabitants may require; but fair competition from the sugar of
other countries will do much to regulate prices.
[Illustration: THE STATUE OF SAN MARTIN AT TUCUMAN.]