[Illustration: ARGENTINA & URUGUAY]
ARGENTINA AND URUGUAY
[Illustration: A PART OF THE IGUAZÚ FALLS]
ARGENTINA AND
URUGUAY
BY
GORDON ROSS
FORMERLY FINANCIAL EDITOR OF “THE STANDARD,” BUENOS AIRES
AND OFFICIAL TRANSLATOR TO THE CONGRESS OF AMERICAN
REPUBLICS, BUENOS AIRES, 1910
WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS, FOUR DIAGRAMS
AND A MAP
METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
_First Published in 1917_
TO
SIR ROBERT JOHN KENNEDY, K.C.M.G.
THIS BOOK
IS DEDICATED IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE
OF THE MANY KINDNESSES SHOWN
AND VALUABLE AID GIVEN
BY HIM
TO THE AUTHOR
IN HIS
LITERARY WORK AT MONTEVIDEO
IN 1911
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
An allegory of the Pampa—Patriarchs and Oligarchies—National
and local politics and administration—Patrician government—The
landed aristocracy—Patriotism and foreign railways—The
problem of agricultural labour—Propaganda, in theory and in
practice—Needed and unneeded immigration—The peon of to-day
and the _gaucho_—Urgent need of rural population—Industries in
waiting—The INCALCULABLE future of the River Plate countries—Lack
of Uruguayan statistics 1
CHAPTER II
THE WAR
The shock falls on existing local depression—Vigorous and
prompt action of the River Plate governments and banks—No
“Mañana”—Mr. C. A. Tornquist’s views—Again the need of rural
population—Socialism from above and below—Buoyancy of national
securities 18
CHAPTER III
HISTORY AND POLITICS
The Declaration of Independence—Subsequent chaos—Rozas and
Artígas—Sarmiento—Mitre—Juarez Celman—The Argentine financial
crash of 1891—Uruguay; “Whites” and “Reds”—Uruguayan patriotism
and honesty—“State socialism gone mad”—The commencements of
modern River Plate history—Dr. Saenz Peña—Sound financial
policy—Future peace and prosperity—The ballot in Argentina and
former electoral corruption—The people a new factor in Argentine
politics 29
CHAPTER IV
RACIAL ELEMENTS AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS
The Argentine of the future (?) and of the past—Spanish
and Italian immigration—Young patriots—Argentine and
Uruguayan sources of immigration—River Plate Spanish and
philology—Argentines and Uruguayans contrasted—Manners and
characteristics—The true signification of “Mañana”—Some advice
to immigrants—Land and the foreigner—Much learning and little
application—Lower-class illiteracy—Argentine women, households,
and children—_Jeunesse dorée_—Further contrast of Argentines and
Uruguayans 40
CHAPTER V
NATIONAL, PROVINCIAL, AND MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT
The constitutions of Argentina and Uruguay, advantages and
defects of each—Dr. Figueroa Alcorta—“Revolución de arriba”—A
“Coup d’État”—Former Argentine electoral practices—Doctrinaire
government in Uruguay—An autocratic democrat—General strike
and general festivities—Certified milk-cans—Provincial
authorities—Freedom from corruption of National governments—The
“making” of internal politics—Finance—“A fat thief better than a
lean one”—Childish things, soon to be put away 62
CHAPTER VI
MONTEVIDEO AND BUENOS AIRES
History and modernity; music and verdure—Theatres
and Bathing—The ambition of Montevideo—Carnival—The
origins of two great fortunes—More historic buildings
and the “Palace of Gold”—The Buenos Aires “tube”; its
tramways—Comparative expense of living—Opera houses and
theatres—Night and day—Ever-changing Buenos Aires—The
Jockey Club—Palermo and the Avenida de Alvear—Fashion moves
northwards—Corso and race-course—Gambling—The agricultural
show—Hurlingham—The Tigre—The Recoleta—“The Bond Street of the
South”—Hotels—Buenos Aires _not_ a hot-bed of vice—Marriage and
mourning—“Conventillos”—Fashion in Buenos Aires and Montevideo 79
CHAPTER VII
FINANCE AND COMMERCE
Susceptibility of South America to conditions of the European
money markets; early fear of Balkan complications—Relatively bad
times—Transient “crises”—August, 1914—Protective measures—“It’s
an ill wind that blows no one any good”—Still further insistence
on the need of agricultural population—Currencies—The Argentine
“Conversion” Law—Former gold speculation and banks of
issue—Golden opportunity for British trade—A South American view
of the Monroe doctrine—The “Hustler”—British manufacturers and
the South American trade—How to lose it—How to keep it—Uruguay’s
creditable reputation—General commercial conditions in Argentina
and Uruguay—The Buenos Aires Stock Exchange—Gambling—Sound
securities: the Argentine Hypothecary Bank, and National,
Provincial, and Municipal Debenture Bonds—The new and the old
Buenos Aires corn exchanges—More about the “Bolza”—Fictitious
booms—A great bear—The death of public speculation—Cedulas _and_
Cedulas—Credito Argentino 93
CHAPTER VIII
RAILWAYS, PORTS AND IMMIGRATION
An _Imperium in Imperio_—Foreign capital in River Plate
railways—Gauges—The “Mitre” Law—Luxurious travelling—An U.S.
Syndicate—Argentine national railways—The Transandine and Entre
Rios lines—The projected southern transandine line—Maritime
accessibility of the River Plate Republics—Chief ports—Spanish
immigration 122
CHAPTER IX
GENERAL STATISTICS
Increase of trade during past two decades—United Kingdom imports
of grain and meat—U.K. exports, showing importance of Argentina
and Uruguay—British capital invested in Argentina during first
half of 1914—Trade of the U.S. with S. America—U.S. exports,
showing importance of Argentina—Argentine imports from Europe in
1913—The rich productiveness of Uruguay—Increase of Argentine and
Uruguayan exports—Public works and small budget surpluses—Buenos
Aires commercial and industrial census, 1914; bread and
smoke(!)—Italian and Spanish retail traders—Russians and Jews 127
CHAPTER X
A GLANCE AT THE PROVINCES AND NATIONAL TERRITORIES OF ARGENTINA,
AND THE INTERIOR OF URUGUAY
BUENOS AIRES, the “Queen” Province: Its stillborn capital—Famous
museum and university—Bahia Blanca—Mar-del-Plata, a veritable
round of gaiety; the new Port—Potatoes—Other chief towns of the
province—Cereals and live stock—Great agricultural and industrial
activity—Generally uninteresting scenery: model farms and fine
country houses 139
SANTA FÉ: Forests, live stock and agriculture—An old-world
capital—Busy Rosario—Other ports—Mixed agriculture and stock
farming—Milling and other industries 144
CÓRDOBA: The gaucho wars—The learned city—The Cathedral
and university—Monks and nuns—Mediæval atmosphere—Some
personal recollections: religion and roulette—Alta gracia—Mar
chiquita—Chief towns—The Dique San Roque—A projected canal 145
ENTRE RIOS: No longer the “Poor Sister”—The railway ferry
service—City of Paraná; Urquíza and Sarmiento—Concórdia—Large
land holdings—Extract of meat 150
CORRIENTES: Where the _Diligence_ still runs—Descendants
of the _Conquistadores_—San Juan de la Vera de las siete
Corrientes—Other chief towns—Good possibilities but commercial
apathy—Lake Iberá—A zoological invasion—General San Martin 153
SAN LUIS: Alfalfa—Irrigation—Grapes and wine—Minerals—Native
indolence 156
SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO: Irrigation and cereal
cultivation—_Alfalfares_—_Quebracho_ and charcoal—Amenities
of the Santiagueño—Quack doctors and wise women; a cure for
toothache—Dangers of quackery 158
TUCUMÁN: Smallest Argentine province, but important—Sugar—Former
difficulties and present progress—The city of Tucumán—The
Declaration of Independence—Palatial villas—The Plaza
Independencia, theatre and casino—Irrigation—Snow-capped
mountains and fertile valleys 160
CATAMARCA: Sparse population—Irrigation and transport; a new
government line—Minerals—_The Campo del Pucara_ and the city
of Catamarca; a sleepy hollow—Native lethargy; a Spanish
aristocracy—Unexploited mineral wealth 163
LA RIOJA: Water, labour and transport needed—Maize and tropical
fruits—Wine—Irrigation—A new national railway—Mineral wealth; _La
Famatina_—The city of La Rioja; arrested development—Remains of
Inca civilization—Mountain and plain 165
JUJUY: The brothers Leach—A picturesque province—The Humahuaca
dialect—General Lavalle—The blue and white flag and the “Sun of
May”—A primitive population 167
SALTA: “The Cradle of the Republic”—Jabez Balfour—The
gaucho—Coya Indians—Need of intelligent and energetic
population—Ponchos—Rubber—Hot springs—No soldiery, only armed
police 169
MENDOZA: Wine—“Entre San Juan y Mendoza”—Alfalfa—San
Rafael—Irrigation—Earthquakes—Public gardens and the West
Park—Wine manufacture—Table grapes—Peaches—Coal and petroleum—The
_Puente del Inca_—Hot springs 174
SAN JUAN: Former financial recalcitrance—Depreciated
paper—Irrigation and enforced prosperity—A new railway—The defeat
of the Buenos Aires grape ring—Old colonial charm 178
THE PAMPA CENTRAL: The fifteenth province?—Wheat, linseed
and maize—Rapid development—Shifting sand-hills—Three great
railways—Wool and hides—The latent landlord in excelsis—Need of a
real colonization policy; _settlers_ wanted 182
NEUQUEN: Chilean colonies and trade—Wheat, alfalfa and
vegetables—“Tronador”; Scandinavian scenery—Lake Nahuel Huapí
and Victoria Island—Hot and medicinal springs—Future wealth—Vast
irrigation—Rich, virgin soil—Deep-water ports 185
RIO NEGRO: Fertile soil, but no rainfall—Irrigation and the
_Lago Pellegrini_—Regulation of the flow of the river—Former
disastrous floods—A climatic transformation—New railway lines—San
Blas—Copper, salt, and petroleum—Furious winds—A scheme which
failed 188
CHUBUT: Petroleum—The Welsh colony—“Foreigners” not admitted—Lazy
descendants of active forefathers—Sparse population—Wool and
alfalfa—A new railway 193
SANTA CRUZ: English climate, orchards and gardens; far from the
madding crowd—Sheep—Wind!—Cold storage—Wheat, oats and alfalfa;
apples and pears 196
TIERRA DEL FUEGO: No volcanoes in “Fire Land”—A cure for
anarchy—Hardy sheep—Seal and whale fishing—Potatoes and table
vegetables—The Silesian mission—Mr. Bridges’ refuge—The new
gaol—Gold prospecting—“De Gustibus!” 197
MISIONES: The “Imperio Jesuitico”—Practical
religion—Fairyland—The Iguazú Falls—Timber—Mate—Maize, sugar
and fruit—Granite—Neglected industries—Need of suitable
labour—Indians then and now—A projected railway to the junction
of three republics 200
FORMOSA: _Not_ the most beautiful—No man’s land—A
projected railway—Quebracho—Alfalfa and maize—Again the
_Latifundío_ question—A fiscal land scandal—Landlords and
squatters—Smuggling—Tobacco and sugar—Timber—Pleasant memories of
the River Plate 205
URUGUAY: General physical and climatic characteristics—Flora—The
Uruguayan Rio Negro the dividing line of general physical
features—Fruit and vegetables—Flour—Soil—Minerals and the Mining
Laws 212
THE CHACO and LOS ANDES: Timber and Minerals 214
CHAPTER XI
AGRICULTURE
Comparative values of agricultural exports—Railways not the only
causes of agricultural extension—Railway policy—Ambassadorial
managers—Intensive and extensive farming—“Secondary”
industries—Bread versus meat—Minerals, petroleum and
pigs—Uruguayan agriculture—River Plate cereal exports—Wheat and
alfalfa; Agricultural _dolce far niente_—Again “population!”—An
economic deadlock—“Colonists”—Mr. Herbert Gibson’s views—Dr.
Francisco Latzina—Cultivable land in Argentina—_The Defensa
Agricola_—Señor Ricardo Pillado—Tabular statistics—Latest
Argentine harvest and cereal export estimates—Deficiency of
official Uruguayan statistics—General soil characteristics 215
CHAPTER XII
LIVE STOCK
The “History of Belgrano”—The first horses on the River Plate—The
_Goes’_ cattle—The first goats and sheep—Early export trade—The
first freezing establishment—Amazing pastoral and agricultural
changes—The “discovery” of alfalfa—Sheep—Fine stock—Horses—Pigs
and poultry—Tired land—Tabular statistics—Favourite
breeds—Comparative absence of disease—British prohibition
of import of animals on the hoof—Drought—Water supplies
of Uruguay and Argentina—A windmill which was not
erected—Fencing—Anglo-Saxon enterprise—The Argentine Rural
Society; its herd and flock books—The agricultural and live
stock show—Trees—The coming colonist and mixed farming—Tabular
statistics—The meat trade: its history from the seventeenth to
the present century—Market classification—Predominance of U.S.
interests in cold storage industry—Influence of cold storage
companies on fine breeding—Tabular statistics 249
CHAPTER XIII
FORESTRY
River Plate timber and fancy woods—Señor Mauduit’s lists
and descriptions—Argentina and Uruguay considered as one
arboricultural area—Importance of this subject—Railway coach
building—Shelter for cattle 277
CHAPTER XIV
LITERATURE AND ART
Historians and poets—Other writers—Art awaits
development—Painting, architecture, literature and music—The
native Drama—Oratory—Heroes and history—An Argentine
sculptress—Wanted: an author 299
INDEX 303
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
MAP _Front Endpaper_
A PART OF THE IGUAZÚ FALLS _Frontispiece_
TO FACE PAGE
THE PLAZA LIBERTAD, MONTEVIDEO 80
THE AVENIDA DE MAYO, BUENOS AIRES 84
THE CATHEDRAL AND PLAZA VICTORIA, BUENOS AIRES 86
TRANSPORTER BRIDGE, PORT OF BUENOS AIRES 122
GRAIN ELEVATORS, MADERO DOCK, BUENOS AIRES 126
RUINS OF JESUIT BUILDINGS, MENDOZA, ARGENTINA 174
A BIT OF THE TRANSANDINE RAILWAY, ARGENTINA 176
ENTRANCE TO THE SUMMIT TUNNEL THROUGH THE ANDES (CHILEAN SIDE) 176
PUENTE DEL INCA; MENDOZA, ARGENTINA 178
VIEWS ON LAKE NAHUEL HUAPÍ, ARGENTINE NATIONAL TERRITORY
OF NEUQUEN 186
HEAD PORTION OF THE RIO NEGRO, ARGENTINA, GREAT IRRIGATION
AND CONTROL WORKS. (BIRD’S-EYE VIEW) 188
A TYPICAL SMALL “CAMP” TOWN (RIVERA, URUGUAY) 212
LIST OF DIAGRAMS
I. INTERNATIONAL TRADE OF ARGENTINA, BRAZIL, CHILE, AND URUGUAY 133
II. DEVELOPMENT OF ARGENTINE AGRICULTURE 243
III. ARGENTINE MEAT TRADE 273
IV. ARGENTINE FROZEN AND CHILLED MEAT EXPORTS 275
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND THANKS
For the majority of the Statistics and Statistical Diagrams contained
in this book the Author is indebted to the Division of Commerce and
Industry of the Argentine Ministry of Agriculture and particularly to the
kindness and courtesy of Señor Ricardo Pillado, the Director-General of
that Division, for permission for their reproduction; for others to Señor
Emilio Lahitte, the Director-General of the Division of Rural Economy and
Statistics in the same Ministry. And in Uruguay to Dr. Julio M. Llamas,
Professor of Political Economy in the University of Montevideo, and Dr.
Daniel García Acevedo, of the Uruguayan Bar, eminent as an authority on
Commercial Law.
The Author’s sincere thanks are also tendered to the Buenos Aires
Great Southern, the Buenos Aires Pacific, and the Central Uruguay of
Montevideo Railway Companies, the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company,
Mitchell’s Library, Buenos Aires, and several private persons for
permission to reproduce photographs with which this book is illustrated;
to the Proprietors of _The Times_ for their consent to the embodiment
under the heading “Currency” of the material portions of an article by
the Author which appeared in the Special South American Number of that
Newspaper under date December 28th, 1909; to the Argentine Committee
for the National Agricultural and Pastoral Census taken in 1908 for
much information; to Mr. Herbert Gibson for his very kind permission to
quote portions of his pamphlet, “The Land We Live On.” And to very many
official and other friends of different Nationalities for help freely
given to the literary work of the Author in the past, much of which help
has borne fruit in this book.
ARGENTINA AND URUGUAY
BEFORE THE WAR AND AFTER
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
A tale of the Pampa[1] tells how a River Plate farmer of bygone days,
seeing his wife and child dead of pestilence and his pastures blackened
by fire, fell into a magic slumber born of the lethargy of despair.
He was awakened, many years afterwards, by the scream of a railway
engine at his boundary; to find his land fenced in, his flocks and herds
improved beyond recognition, and maize and wheat waving where only coarse
grass had been before.
This allegory is true.
It tells the whole story of the real development of the River Plate
Territories, a development in which the descendant of the original
settlers has but comparatively recently begun to take an active part.
He, the Patriarch of the soil, lived on his land while English capital
and Italian labour opened up its treasures to the world. In the
beginnings of Argentina as a nation, his property consisted of vast herds
of long-horned, bony cattle, valuable only for their hides, which roamed
the Pampa in savage freedom; untended, save for periodic slaughter and
skinning and the yearly rounding up for the marking of the calves.
Later, came the acknowledgment between neighbours, living at vast
distances from one another, of boundaries which indicated the huge areas
over which each had grazing rights. Later still came the time when the
more far-sighted of such men bought wire and, with _quebracho_ posts,
ringed in those areas as their own. The foreigner and his railway did the
rest to build up the huge fortunes of the children and grandchildren of
those far-sighted Patriarchs. For Patriarchs they were, Pastoral Kings
surrounded by half-caste _gauchos_ who lived in the familiar vassalage
of the great mud-walled, grass-thatched house, and spoke in the familiar
second person singular still in use among Argentines towards their
servants; otherwise only employed between members of the same family or
close friends. Until a very few years ago, these great Argentine families
constituted Oligarchies which ruled almost absolutely each over one of
the more distant Provinces, the people of which were the descendants of
the vassals of their forefathers. The full power of these Provincial
Oligarchies was only broken by the centralizing policy of President
Dr. Figueroa Alcorta (1906 to 1910). The curtailing of their power was
very necessary for the credit of National Finance and Justice, for that
power was often exercised with a mediæval high-handedness unsuited to
twentieth-century ideas.
The disintegration of the power of local Oligarchies, each of which
completely dominated the Congress of its province, was one of the
final but quite necessary steps towards putting the house of Argentina
into perfect political and financial order; especially as Provincial
Governors, hitherto always members of the Oligarchic families, were
also almost invariably members of the National Senate. Add to these
considerations the further one that the Provincial Courts had somehow or
other gained a reputation for not meting out justice to political friend
and foe alike, and that much complaint was heard about the difficulties
encountered by some persons in even working the way of their cases up
to the admirably impartial hearing of the Federal High Court of Appeal;
since, for instance, it is difficult to appeal from a decision which has
not been given, and which you seem to possess no means to obtain, even as
against you.
All these inconveniences and scandals had long called imperatively for
reform, but it was reserved for Dr. Figueroa Alcorta to discover the way
to successfully bell these powerful provincial cats.
The way he found (which is referred to more fully in a later chapter) was
essentially South American; but, as many things in South America which at
first sight appear strange to European eyes do, it worked very well.
It is desirable here, however, to make quite clear the fact that any
political South Americanisms which may still survive in Argentina are
strictly confined to her internal and local politics and administration.
Within that sphere it might almost be said that only the Judges of the
Federal High Court of Appeal keep themselves completely clear of any
shadow of suspicion. If you get to the Federal High Court you have the
Law of the Land administered with unflinching impartiality. The only
leaning of which that Tribunal has ever been accused (and that only
jokingly) is that of an inclination to decide against the Government.
Because, its judges, once appointed, cannot be removed unless on the
ground of gross misconduct; whereas all other functionaries in the
country are more or less liable to feel the effects of political
influence. The National foreign or commercial policy is also as
transparently pure and fair as it is possible to be. Argentina knows her
best interests much too well to seem even to offend against European
ethical standards in anything which touches external policy or Foreign
interests, however remote.
As for her internal politics, these have been, until very recently, at
all events, left by common consent of foreigner and native alike to
the sweet will of the caste of professional politicians. These people
intrigue for place and profit and have vicissitudes, triumphs and
defeats, without the real wealth-producers of the country knowing or
caring one way or another. The doings of the Ministries of Finance,
Agriculture (embracing Commerce and Industry) and Public Works and the
legislation affecting matters appertaining thereto are all that matter to
the Bankers, Traders and Agriculturists or the great Railway Companies;
and these leading Official and Commercial and Industrial Classes are
the only people of real consequence in the land; unless one adds the
Municipal Authorities of the Cities of Buenos Aires and Bahia Blanca.
The actual Government, however, is jealously kept in native patrician
hands. If one finds a foreign name in the list of high officials it may
safely be assumed that the bearer of it is connected by marriage with one
of what may be called the great ruling Argentine families, with names
recurrent in the country’s History.
These families constitute the real aristocracy of the Republic, and are
mostly possessed of very great wealth. Kind and sympathetically courteous
to the stranger as are all Argentines, one cannot but smile when one
finds writers implying that entrance into Argentine Society is easily
effected by anyone who, as I once saw it stated, could play a good hand
at bridge.
As a fact, no stranger ever becomes a member of the best Argentine
Society; he may find himself in it at brief, fleeting moments, but he is
never of it. As in the aristocracies of the old world, all its members
are connected more or less remotely by blood or marriage, usually both,
with one another. One may know intimately many men prominent in Argentine
Society, may be received by them at their houses now and again and mingle
there with other men, their kindred; but the charming conversation one
enjoys when there is not that which was going on when one entered, and
will continue after one has left again. Argentine ladies only receive
on set, formal occasions; unless in such public places as the Palermo
Race-course or the Rambla at Mar-del-Plata. Small and select dinners
take place rather at the Jockey Club than in private houses. Under a
somewhat effusive external manner, the Argentine has all the reserved
exclusiveness of his Spanish ancestors. Gold has its weight in Argentina
as elsewhere; but it has more efficacy as a key to society in many
European capitals than in Buenos Aires; notwithstanding the almost
childish fondness of Argentines for the display of their own wealth, a
characteristic which makes them (and other Americans) beloved in Hotels
and Restaurants throughout the world. The one characteristic for which
the Argentine does not get full credit from the superficial observer is
the very strong vein of common sense which underlies his more immediately
noticeable affectation of manner and behaviour. A great deception is
always in store for those who do not appreciate the fact that the most
boisterously extravagant Argentine never really loses sight of the fact
that 2 and 2 make 4 and no more and no less. Yet this should be apparent
in a nation which has known so well during the fifty or sixty years of
its real development how to let the foreigner work out that development
at a good profit for himself, of course, but at a much greater one for
them. The Argentine, while availing himself of every advantage derivable
from the influx into his country of foreign Capital and Labour, has never
really loosed his hold on his own independent Government nor the land.
His land is and has always been the source of his fortune, and to his
land he clings with unrelaxing tenacity. If there is a good bargain to be
made in real property, it is an Argentine who immediately takes advantage
of it to increase his probably already large holding.
He it is who most readily lends money on mortgage, at a high rate of
interest, on real property. He knows only of one way in which to invest
the surplus of his income—in land or the things intimately connected
with land and its immediate productivity. Agricultural enterprise he
understands and daily appreciates more and more its scientific working.
Intensive farming is already practised by him in those parts of the
country where land is most valuable. He breeds as fine cattle and sheep
as any foreign breeder or colonizing company.
But for commerce other than purely agricultural he has no bent. So he
wisely leaves it in the hands of the stranger, who thereby develops
his towns, and builds railways and tramways; all of which go to the
enhancement of the values of Argentine real property.
Now and again there is a pseudo-patriotic clamour in certain sections of
the Native Press over what is denounced as the exploitation of Argentina
by the foreigner. But all this is mere froth born of journalistic need
of “copy”: mere great-gooseberry matter for a dull season. That it is no
more was proved a few years ago by the great English Railway Companies.
They became weary of being denounced as the worst kind of exploiters
of an innocent bucolic people; and, in reply, published broadcast an
announcement that they would transfer a certain large quantity of their
shares at par (the market price being considerably higher) to Argentines
who might thereby qualify themselves not only for a share in the
Companies’ profits, but for seats on the Boards of Directors; where they
could have a voice in the management of what was being denounced as a
vast system of exploitation. To this very liberal, almost quixotic, offer
there was no response. For the simple reason that, whilst the railway
dividends did not exceed 7%, land mortgages carried 10% or 12%, and the
yield from immediate agricultural enterprise proportionately more.
Every branch line opened by the railways, often at huge expense of
expropriation, spells fortune to Argentines. If the railway gains in a
less degree who should complain? No one really does, everyone really
concerned being much too well aware on which side his own particular
bread is buttered. As I have said, the Argentine is possessed of a quite
preponderating amount of common sense.
His attitude towards the foreigner is, “I give you all liberty and
protection for any enterprise you may wish to carry out in my country, by
which you may become very rich; but the country itself and nearly all the
land in it is mine and will remain so.”
The last thing the Argentine will part with as an individual or as a
nation is land.
Grants of fiscal lands were made in the past with scandalous liberality
for political services, but to Argentines. Mighty little of such lands,
none of any, then, apparent value, went to foreigners; whatever they
might have done for the country’s development and good. Now, few grants
of such lands are made to anyone; the National and Provincial Governments
appreciating too fully the advantages of their retention as aids to power
and wealth.
In all this the Argentine is right from his natural point of view; but
his obstinate maintenance of it is gradually bringing certain economic
problems of vital importance to a stage when some way will have to be
found out of the dilemmas which they already present.
The chief of these problems is that of agricultural labour. What
inducement does Argentina offer to the class of colonist she needs most,
the man with a wife and family to aid him in his work and with, perhaps,
a small amount of Capital?
He will find plenty of work and people to employ his labour at a liberal
wage as soon as he lands. He will be taken, if he so wish, free of all
cost to himself, to one or other of the more or less distant parts of the
Republic, where he may be set to work on virgin soil at a wage, or, may
be, on a half share of profits for a period of three years. On the scene
of his industry he will find an Italian or Galician storekeeper who will
supply his every reasonable want on credit, taking as security the share
to come to him of the profits from the land to be worked. The storekeeper
will also charge a high rate of interest on prices of his own fixing,
unembarrassed by any competitors within a radius of very many miles; or,
if there be such, he and they will know well enough how to preserve a
rate of profit which would astonish an European shopkeeper.
At the end of three years the landlord will have his land in good working
order,[2] and the storekeeper will have most, if not all, of the new
colonist’s share of profits. The latter can then, if he likes, have some
more virgin land on similar terms. He is a mere labourer, a worker for
others, with no betterment on his own horizon.
There is as yet no real practically working official machinery by
which he can obtain a direct grant of land in freehold to himself;
such as exists, with other added facilities, in each of our own great
agricultural dependencies such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
For this reason alone, the rural population of Argentina has almost
ceased to show much more than a vegetative increase. The population of
the whole Republic is that of greater London spread over an area only a
very little less than that of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark,
France, Holland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland put
together.
This lack of increase in the rural population is not due to Argentina
being a country unknown to the appropriate class of people. There are
thousands of Italian peasants who go there regularly every year as
harvesters, and who return to their own country as soon as the crops
are gathered in. They know Argentina and the natural richness of her
resources as well as do born Argentines, but they also know that they
cannot get land. Only wages; the purchasing power of which is so much
greater in Italy that there they can live on them in semi-idleness for
the remainder of the year, whereas they would attain no greater pecuniary
advantage by remaining and working permanently in Argentina, where the
cost of living is relatively very great. So they remain “swallows” as
they are called, coming and going with the beginning and close of the
harvest season.
If Argentina wants settlers, and she does need them badly, she must make
up her mind to give them land.
And she must also make a thorough overhaul of the titles to all lands as
yet not under cultivation. Because many of such lands are merely traps
for the unwary who may be induced to occupy and develop them only to
find himself, after he has ploughed and planted, called upon to pay rent
to some resident in Buenos Aires or some other town whose property they
turn out to be, under some long-forgotten Government grant, and who has
not only never visited them, but has also practically lain in wait for
some innocent settler to develop them under the impression that they
were his own. Cases of this kind have happened over and over again; and
the deluded settler, who may have even purchased the land in question at
a public auction or have obtained it from some self-styled colonizing
Company, finds himself with nothing but a vista of wearisome and costly
litigation before he can hope to grasp a usually very elusive remedy for
his wrong. Generally, he gives the whole thing up in despair and becomes
a tenant of the land on which he has already spent all his small capital.
These things are also known to the Italian harvester, and the knowledge
of them acts as a further deterrent to his becoming a settler.
As Argentina is blessed with almost the best possible laws about
everything sublunary, she has, naturally, first-rate colonization
regulations. Only these are confined to her statute books and sundry
pamphlets which lie in dust-covered heaps in the Ministry of Agriculture.
But there is as yet no real working machinery for the carrying out in
practice of all these excellent embodiments of the results of experience
of farming colonization all the world over. There are no officials
whose exclusive duty it is to attend to the multiple exigencies of true
colonization, and none capable of such work if they were suddenly called
upon to do it, for lack of the necessary experience.
An intending colonist may therefore land in Buenos Aires with a small but
sufficient amount of capital for a reasonable start in, say, Australia
or Canada, and may wander about that city till, if he be foolish enough,
his money is all spent without ever having found any Government office or
official willing or in a position to put him into possession of the land
he wants.
He usually, after a few weeks of fruitless search, goes back to Australia
or New Zealand or wherever else he may have come from, disgusted with
Argentina and her ways; of which he, on getting back, gives an account
which effectually damps off any existing enthusiasm in his neighbourhood
for emigration to the River Plate for a long while to come.
The Argentine Government spends plenty of money in advertisement, and
true advertisement, of the fertility and marvellous climates of a
Republic which extends over 35 degrees of latitude, but neglects to make
provision for those who may desire to respond actively to its propaganda.
This neglect is due, really, to an inherent incapacity for detail, part
of the Argentine nature which, therefore, is terribly prone to get tired
half-way through a job. In South America, generally, a wonderful amount
of enthusiasm is always available for the planning of new schemes. The
declamatory exposition of their sovereign virtues and glory amid the
acclamations of sympathetic Board or Committee meetings is a grateful
task; as is that of the dissemination of these discourses in pamphlet
form, in which also the full list of the names of the originators and
supporters of the scheme appears. It is, however, when practice shows
unworkable flaws in splendid theories, when the drudgery of adapting
high-flown principles to plain everyday drab facts must take the place of
inaugural banquets and florid speeches, that Argentine enthusiasm has a
regrettable way of petering out. Soon, something newer and of a different
kind is started by someone else. The meetings and banquets are held in
its honour by other groups and the former scheme passes to a shadowy
land, the way to which is always kept paved with a plenitude of good
intentions.
Capital will always be forthcoming for profitable enterprise; as will
Labour if that enterprise be made profitable to the worker—a good and
useful class of whom can only be induced to emigrate by the prospect of
permanent betterment of the conditions of life. The natural ambition
of every man is to work for himself, to be the master of the results
of his own efforts and to possess those results as a provision for his
old age and his children. This a new country or colony must offer if it
would obtain the high level of intelligent labour which it needs for its
fullest and best development.
On the other hand no one need starve or go hungry for long in any of
the countries of the River Plate; unless he elects to be and to remain
a persistent loafer in one of the large towns. Even then he has only to
ask and he will receive food, at almost any restaurant or private house.
If he refuse to beg or to leave town, he may suffer hunger and thirst,
otherwise he cannot. To begin with he can always get a job at one thing
or another from any of the numerous private agencies which have standing
orders for labour, and even schoolmasters, for the “Camp,” and which are
as avid of candidates for such jobs as any crimp of the old days was for
men of any kind to sling aboard a ship.
Once in the camp any man who has had the grit to go there is sure of
finding someone wanting some kind of work which he can do in some sort
of fashion. There he will recover such of his normal health and strength
as he may have lost as a city unemployed, and will soon shake into a
capacity for, and get, something better to do than his first job.[3]
The native agricultural labourer or “peon” is a very free and easy
and light-hearted kind of person, and must be treated accordingly if
his services are to be retained. He is never rude unless in answer to
obviously intentional offence offered to himself, and will work very much
harder for an employer he likes than for one he finds unsympathetic.
Indeed he will only remain with the latter on his own tacit understanding
that he takes things easily.
When he has accumulated a few dollars of wages he will take himself
off to the nearest store or township and indulge in such dissipation
as the place affords. From thence he departs with perhaps a few cheap
handkerchiefs or other small finery, in the breast of his blouse, which
he bestows as gifts at various friendly cottages; at each of which he may
while away a day, partaking of pot luck, a shake down on the floor, and
innumerable mates and cigarettes, making himself merrily agreeable to his
hosts. When he gets tired of this, or has exhausted the immediate circle
of his friends, he will return to work on the property on which he left
off; or somewhere else should he find himself not as well received on his
return as he had hoped.
It is pretty much all one to him. An experienced native peon need never
go far begging for a job.
These men are strong and wiry, capable of spurts of very hard work
indeed; so that, even with frequent intervals for chat with everyone
available, their average day’s work is usually by no means a bad one.
Severity in an employer they will take with perfect good humour; but
any affected superiority, or “side,” on his part will meet with a very
contemptuous resentment. They are true sons of a Republic, though holding
school-learning in the deep respect observable in peasantry almost all
the world over.
The Argentine peon inherits much of the ready wit and extraordinary
gift of repartee of his immediate ancestor the GAUCHO; of whom he is
the modern representative. With whom, however, a concertina has most
unfortunately taken the place of the guitar. But as a bachelor he is the
same flirtatious, lady-killing scamp; loving often and riding away from,
most frequently instead of with, the lady of his ephemeral choice.
His wit, and hers, most frequently take the form of double entente.
An interchange of chaff has always one perfectly innocent superficial
meaning and another the realization of which would redden the ears of
a British bargee. Both parties to this skilled contest of phrases keep
perfectly immobile countenances and neither gives a sign, except by
his or her, always latent, reply, of any perception of the underlying
significance of the conversation.
This exchange of wit is a form of art derived from the gaucho _Payadores_
or minstrels, who improvised their songs in verses which, on the
face of them, were hymns to Nature in its purer forms, and contrived
simultaneously to either hugely amuse ribald company or else to convey
insult to a present rival payador who answered in like manner in his
turn; hidden insult being thus intentionally heaped on insult till a
fight with knives succeeded singing. A fight in which all present took
sides and joined.
Thus were Sundays enjoyed in the PULPERIAS (canteens) of the older times,
over a quarter of a century ago.
A now almost lost art of those days was the knife play in which the
gaucho was then an extraordinary adept. Even now gauchos may be found,
in the distant northern Provinces, who in a duel, according as it be a
serious or a playful one, can kill or just draw a pin-prick’s show of
blood at will from their adversary. In these duels the knife is kept in
constant rapid, dazzling movement, while the _poncho_ or gaucho shawl,
with a slit through which the head is passed when wearing, is wrapped
round the left arm which is used as a guard.
The gaucho was a picturesque figure in his _chiripá_[4] or festal,
wide-bottomed, lace-frilled trousers, a broad leathern girdle studded
with silver coins and his silver-mounted, high-pommelled saddle. The
_chiripá_ and girdle remain; and one may still see a camp dandy glorious
on feast-days in a saddle adorned with silver mountings.
But the cow-boy utility of the gaucho waned with the advent of scientific
farming. He had no taste nor aptitude for such new-fangled ideas; and now
his sons are mostly to be found in the army, the police, or that very
useful body of firemen and soldiers too, the corps of “Bomberos,” men
who can be relied on at any moment to quell a fire or a riot in their
own very effective way. They fear neither flames nor turbulent strikers,
and are only too ready, in the case of the latter, to shoot first and
listen to orders afterwards. Another body of men drawn almost exclusively
from gaucho sources is the “Squadron of Security”; a mounted corps of
steel-cuirassed and helmeted semi-military police, also used to clear the
streets of political or other disturbances. Three trumpet blasts sounded
in quick succession are the signal for a charge in lines extending, for
instance, over the whole breadth of the Avenida de Mayo. Such is the law
and everyone, as in England, is presumed to know it. If he do not, and
therefore fail to take prompt refuge down a side street or in a shop, so
much the worse for him. The Avenida will be cleared even if he be taken
to the Asistencia Publica as a consequence of the process, without any
valid claim for damages. He heard the “Clarion” and is assumed to have
contumaciously disregarded its warning.
It might be thought that the vegetative increase of such a hardy nucleus
of native population would suffice for the Labour needs of the country.
There are, however, many reasons for the fact that it does not. The chief
of these is the general refractoriness of the Indian to the process of
education on the lines of the white races. You cannot by any means make
a white man out of an Indian any more than you can of a Negro. And the
gaucho has usually more Indian (and Negro, from the slave days) blood in
him than he has white.
Unrivalled in the days when vast hordes of semi-savage cattle needed
rounding up and cutting out with his lazo and _boleadora_, the gaucho has
not always the patience nor the regard for detail needed for the care
of prize Durhams, Polled Angus or Herefords; nor is he at his best with
modern agricultural machinery. Neither does his character lend itself to
the dull discipline expected and necessary on a farm to-day. He can no
longer with impunity stay the extra day or two at the canteen to which
his savings entitle him; and on the farm he finds himself confined to
the more subservient work. Against all this his native pride rebels, and
he gradually drifts into the army or the police, where he is gradually
being exterminated by the disintegrating effects of idleness and lack of
the hard physical exercise which kept his ancestors in health. A greedy
meat-eater, he succumbs as often to stomach as to lung trouble.
Population! In every other way nature is most bountiful on the River
Plate. If only Argentina were more thickly peopled her wealth would be
phenomenal in the world. For it must not be thought that grain and cattle
sum up the whole extent of her possible productivity. Far from it: her
output has hitherto been confined to these commodities because they were
so obviously those which most readily yield immediate profits, without
in the first place demanding any great outlay of capital or scientific
acquirements. Cattle there have always been on the Pampa since the time
of the Goes’ cows;[5] and as for grain, the virgin soil barely needed
scratching for its growth. Thus cereal cultivation and cattle raising
naturally became the national industries, and the population has never
been sufficient to attend even to all the possibilities of these, let
alone others. Nevertheless, there are many more which Nature has in store
for these marvellous countries with their great variety of climates.
Sugar (pretty badly exploited till recently), coffee, cotton, tobacco
(already grown in the North and even, to a comparatively small extent, in
the Province of Buenos Aires) and timber of many and valuable kinds are
among the future produce of the Southern Republics; while the wool output
of Argentina could be greatly increased.
No lack of capital would be felt were there the necessary skilled
management and labour available for the production of, leaving sugar and
timber apart for the moment, let us say cotton and tobacco.
In the cultivation of both of these, much depends on selection of kinds
according to soil and climate and on the right moment for gathering. It
is owing to ignorance in these regards as well as to labour difficulties
that several attempts to cultivate these crops on a large scale have
hitherto only resulted in failure.
Given the necessary science and labour, soil and climate may well be
trusted to do the rest for assured success.
Nothing is lacking to the countries of the River Plate but population.
Given adequate human agency to exploit their evident and latent
treasures, they have before them a future prosperity which can only be
called _incalculable_ in its marvellous immensity.
NOTE.—A fact that cannot escape observation by the reader
of this book is that of the comparative absence of exact
statistical information disclosed in it in regard to Uruguay
in comparison with that which appears relating to Argentina.
The reason of this is that while the latter country has now had
many decades in which to put its house in order, the former
is still so busily occupied in that necessary task that its
officials have as yet had little time to devote to compiling
authoritative statistics of a progress of which it must not,
therefore, be inferred that they and their country are not very
justly proud.
Thus figures which are easily available through the patriotic
ability and industry of Dr. Francisco Latzina, the chief of
the National Argentine Statistical Department, and so clearly
and strikingly digested by Señor Ricardo Pillado, the Director
of the Division of Commerce and Industry in the Argentine
Ministry of Agriculture, a Ministry the scope of whose work is
extremely wide and all-important in the Republic, have really
yet no counterparts in Uruguay, where one is rather left to
guess at the general effect of such isolated agricultural trade
statistics as alone are immediately available. Figures are to
be had by the private courtesy of individuals connected with
various administrations, and these, if not exact, are no doubt
approximately so; but they do not bear the stamp nor the proof
of comparison which should be found in authoritative figures.
The author knows from the test of his own previous experience
that such few figures as he has given concerning Uruguay are
substantially correct, and must therefore, though reluctantly,
ask the reader to take his word for it that they are so.