NATIONAL, PROVINCIAL, AND MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT
The Constitutions of Argentina and Uruguay differ chiefly in that while
the former gives a large measure of autonomy to the Provinces (therein,
as in other respects, being closely modelled on that of the United
States), the latter does not, the whole legislative power being vested in
the National Congress.[12]
Argentina has 14 Provinces and 11 National Territories, including the
district of the Federal Capital, the city of Buenos Aires. Each of the
Provinces has a Governor and a Parliament of its own, chosen by the local
electorate, and possesses, as has been said, a very large measure of
autonomy in the management of its own fiscal and other internal affairs.
Other large areas which are not yet judged by Congress to have attained
sufficient development to be able to support the financial burdens and
status of autonomous Provinces have remained _National Territories_ under
the direct control of the National Government. The Municipal Council
of the Federal Capital has wide administrative powers, always subject,
however, to the sanction of the National Executive, and the “Lord Mayor”
(Intendente Municipal) of Buenos Aires is appointed by the National
Government.
The National Territory likely to be the first promoted to the rank of a
Province is that of the PAMPA CENTRAL; now one of the chief cereal areas
of the Republic.
The Argentine Provinces and National Territories are the following:
PROVINCES
1. Buenos Aires.
2. Santa Fé.
3. Entre Rios.
4. Corrientes.
5. Córdoba.
6. San Luis.
7. Santiago del Estero.
8. Mendoza.
9. San Juan.
10. La Rioja.
11. Catamarca.
12. Tucumán.
13. Salta.
14. Jujuy.
TERRITORIES
1. Federal Capital.
2. Misiones.
3. Formosa.
4. Chaco.
5. Pampa Central.
6. Neuquen.
7. Rio Negro.
8. Chubut.
9. Santa Cruz.
10. Tierra del Fuego.
11. Los Andes.
It should be added that all Public Acts and Judicial Decisions of one
Province have legal effect in all the others. Sometimes, however,
conflicts of jurisdiction afford matter for the decision of the Federal
High Court.
Uruguay is divided into 19 DEPARTMENTS, each of which has a Governor
appointed by the National Executive and an administrative Council chosen
by local popular vote. The Departments of Uruguay are:
Tucuarembo.
Cerro Largo.
Durazno.
Paysandú.
Salto.
Minas.
Florida.
Artígas.
Rocha.
Rivera.
Treinta y tres.
Soriano.
Rio Negro.
San José.
Colonia.
Flores.
Maldonado.
Canelones.
Montevideo.
It is perhaps not convenient here to discuss the comparative advantages
of the two systems; but it must be said that evidence of the defects
inherent to the qualities of both is not lacking. In Argentina the
Provinces and in Uruguay the National Governments have frequently shown
and still show a disposition to make ells out of the inches given them by
their respective constitutions.
In Argentina this disposition was considerably scotched though not
killed by the Centralizing policy of Dr. Figueroa Alcorta, the immediate
predecessor in the Presidential chair of the recently deceased Dr. Roque
Saenz Peña. Dr. Alcorta’s policy was fundamentally good and was carried
out by him with, doubtless, the best of motives, if the manner of its
execution was rather Gilbertian.
The evils he attacked arose from the fact that each of the more distant
Provinces was practically under the almost autocratic domination of a
great land-owning family; the descendants, usually, of the lords of the
soil in the patriarchal days of the River Plate countries.
In those Provinces these families and their nearer ramifications formed
powerful oligarchies; ruling over people who in their turn were the
descendants of those who in bygone days had been little else than the
vassals of the Great House. The head of the leading family was the
Governor of his Province by an almost acknowledged right of inheritance;
while his sons, nephews, and sons-in-law occupied the chief posts in the
Provincial Government.
It is not too much to say that these people had, in measure as the
National Government became more and more perfected in its conduct and
outlook, become an insufferable obstacle to uniformity of ordered conduct
of public affairs. Especially was this so in financial matters.
The outlying and, mostly, poorer Provinces were always needing, or
at any rate wanting, money; and at the same time not over-nice about
their lack of unpledged security when they found a European financier,
as untrammelled by scruple as they themselves, willing to engineer a
further Provincial loan under the independent borrowing powers given by
the Constitution to each Province. Some of them also wished to continue
and even increase the issue of notes the value of which was shockingly
depreciated, and which were only legal tender within the boundaries of
the particular Province. Almost in vain, the National Government issued
diplomatic and consular circulars to the effect that Provincial loans
were not Argentine National loans, and that it, the National Government,
would only hold itself responsible for the latter. The financiers who
floated new Provincial loans were well aware that the majority of those
persons whom they could induce to take up such bonds knew little or
nothing of the distinction between National and Provincial. The loan was
an Argentine one; puffed with perfectly true statistics of the progress
and prosperity of the Argentine Republic—without too much insistence on
that of the particular Province concerned. Besides, these financiers and,
possibly, some of their clients calculated on the extreme probability
of the National Government, if an awkward situation really did arise,
not allowing its Provinces to be declared defaulters in Europe, because
of the consequent slur which must inevitably, though unjustly, fall on
the name of “Argentina”; a name the credit of which the untiring and
scrupulous efforts of the National Government have built up since the
crisis of 1891.
The Provincial Oligarchies had also other ways of jockeying National
Government. They would ask for all sorts of things, and if refused would
proceed to rant shamelessly in the Senate. This was blackmail, nothing
more nor less; but frequently effective, since Provincial Governors are
practically always members of the National Senate; in which the President
must, obviously, have a majority if he is to carry on the Government.
Such situations Dr. Figueroa Alcorta determined to take in hand; and the
only way of doing this was to break up the offending Oligarchies.
Much of the humour of his doing so lay in the fact that he owed his high
post to an original miscalculation of his character as that of a pleasant
enough figure-head certain to be docile in the hands of the wire-pullers.
Therefore he was appointed Vice-President to be a negligible quantity
under the Presidency of Dr. Manuel Quintana. On whose death he, _ipso
facto_, under the Constitution, became acting President for the remainder
of Dr. Quintana’s term of office. The developments of Dr. Figueroa
Alcorta were as much a surprise to Argentine politicians as were those of
Bret Harte’s “Heathen Chinee” to his associates in “the game he did not
understand.” And realization came as late in the day in the one case as
in the other.
A veritable epidemic of local Revolutions sprang up in one after the
other of the oligarchically ruled Provinces. On each occasion an
“Interventor” was, as is provided by the Constitution for such cases,
sent down by the National Government to enquire into the causes of the
disturbance, and particularly to ascertain if the Province concerned
were being ruled “in accordance with the Constitution and democratic
principles.” If the answer to this last question were found to be in the
affirmative, National troops could be sent down to support the existing
Provincial Government; if in the negative, the ruling party, including,
of course, the Governor, could be deposed and a successor appointed by
the National Government in his stead.
As a result it gradually (but not till it was very nearly all over)
dawned on the general intelligence of the country that the Governors who
had been found to have ruled their Provinces “in accordance with the
constitution, etc.,” were faithful supporters of the Presidential policy;
whilst those who had been deposed for misrule happened, strangely enough,
to be those who had kicked over, or shown an overt disposition to kick
over, the Presidential traces.
This appealed to the public sense of humour and “Revolución de arriba”
(Revolution from above, _i.e._ instigated in high quarters[13]) became a
catch phrase. Thus were the Oligarchies brought to naught and the central
power greatly strengthened thereby.
Dr. Figueroa Alcorta’s crowning _coup d’état_ was, however, his shutting
Congress out of its own Palace in consequence of its conspired refusal to
pass one of his budgets. One fine day, the National Senators and Deputies
on reaching the Congress building found it in possession of troops who
refused them admission. Remonstrance was unavailing, and they perforce
returned home. Meanwhile, the President passed the Budget himself, as the
Constitution gives him power to do “when Congress is not sitting.”
In the result Dr. Figueroa Alcorta’s Budget (which was a perfectly
wise and necessary one) remained operative and the officer who had
commanded the troops was heavily fined for disrespect shown to the sacred
offices of Senator and Deputy. The gallant officer’s plea in defence
that the President whose orders he had obeyed on that occasion was, as
constitutional Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, his Military Superior,
availed him nothing. Nobody else was one penny the worse. Possibly, the
payment of Colonel Calazza’s fine came “de arriba” like the Revolutions.
Soon afterwards Dr. Figueroa Alcorta was the courteous and diplomatic
host of Personages (including the Infanta Isabella) at the 1910 Centenary
Festivities; and, shortly after that again, vacated the Presidential
chair in favour of Dr. Saenz Peña, his successor “by consent.” The usual
and graceful, though officially unacknowledged, custom in Argentina being
that the Presidential Election shall follow a prearranged course.[14]
With the matter of elections Dr. Saenz Peña’s name is, as has been said,
intimately and honourably associated, and it may be repeated that by his
death the Republic lost one of its most broad-minded and straightforward
statesmen.
Up to the passing of his Electoral Reform Law, no self-respecting private
citizen ever dreamed of voting: simply because if he favoured the
Government policy his doing so would be a mere work of supererogation,
while if he held opposition views it would be sheer waste of time and
trouble on his part; and if he were a provincial voter he would certainly
find himself the object of unpleasant attention by the police, whose
really chief duty was to “conduct” elections to the satisfaction of the
ruling party. Anyhow, his voting could not influence the preordained
result of the election one way or the other. Voting was done by the
mere deposit of a “Libreta” or certificate of citizenship, and libretas
deposited in favour of the ruling party were subject to little scrutiny
as to whether the persons named in them were alive or dead. They were
thrown in at the polling stations in bundles. Some were bought; though
at a low figure, because there were thousands of blank libretas at
Government House ready to be filled in by quick-writing clerks in
the very remote event of any booth being reported to have received a
disconcerting number of votes adverse to the Government.
In the Provinces the proceedings were rougher and readier; the
comparative smallness of the communities enabling the Police Commissary
to know the political views of all persons in his district. Did a
would-be opponent of the ruling powers heave in sight, he was hustled
as if to make room for others who had arrived before him, and if he
were still foolish enough to persist in trying to vote he was arrested
for making a disturbance, and locked up till the election was over. The
Provincial Police Authorities could hardly be blamed for their share in
this scandal, because the successful conduct of elections was really a
_sine qua non_ condition of their tenure of office. Failure meant for
them being almost immediately superseded.
In Uruguay, no matter whether Reds or Whites (the two great political
parties) were in power, the rural population, the true backbone of the
agricultural country, were perennially in opposition: because they found
that the atmosphere of the capital somehow or another always infected
their rulers with ideas of government which, however splendid they might
be in theory, were more often than not quite out of harmony with, and
often contradictory to, practical agricultural needs and conditions.
Thus, to cite an instance often referred to in this regard, it is not
long since a German agricultural expert, specially imported with the
best of intentions by the Government, showed them that wheat allowed to
mature for a while in stacks had a greater commercial value in Europe
than that thrashed simultaneously with reaping and shipped immediately.
This is, in itself, undeniable fact; from which, however, the Uruguayan
Government drew the conclusion that it would be well to pass a law making
it obligatory, under penalty for not doing so, on every farmer in the
country to stack all his wheat for a certain period before sending it for
export. This proposal naturally raised an outcry throughout the country.
Because a practice which presents little practical inconvenience and much
advantage in an European country, where small wheat fields and a more
or less damp climate are the rule, would be monstrously ridiculous in a
land where grain is grown by the square league, and where, accidents of
weather apart, the standing crops are well dried by the sun. Just imagine
the enormous expense involved in stacking wheat over such vast areas as
are covered by cereals in the River Plate countries. In which countries,
moreover, the greatest of all difficulties in the way of production is
the scarcity of labour! The stacking method would cost vastly more than
the difference in the value between stacked and unstacked grain.
Needless to say, this brilliantly conceived law was never passed; but
the idea of it stands as an example of the doctrinaire tendencies of
Montevidean statesmen of which the rural industries complain.
That there is a mysterious something in the air of Montevideo which
influences men in the direction of abstract idealism, and at the same
time blinds them to facts which their cherished theories will not fit,
seems undeniable. But it is unlikely that Uruguay will ever again be
plunged into the ruinous throes of Revolution.
Once the leaders of Uruguayan opinion grasped the fact that Revolution is
the greatest possible impediment to the best interests of the country,
the peaceful future of the Republic was assured; and they now seem to
have grasped it clearly and firmly.
State insurance, State railways, State tramways, water and gas works,
electrical power stations and, in fact, State everything was Señor
Batlle’s[15] plan for holding Uruguay up to the world as a splendid
object-lesson in State Socialism. Here again one sees the fire of
patriotism gleaming through a mass of practical difficulties (the
obtaining of necessary capital for the purpose, and on the necessary
conditions of the execution of such splendid plans, for instance) in the
way of the accomplishment of the President’s dream.
Equally patriotic were those who endeavoured to keep the brakes well
pressed on to the wheels of the “progressive” Presidential car; hoping
for the conclusion of Señor Batlle y Ordoñez’s term of office before too
much harm were done. But, mark this, not a sign of overt rebellion in a
situation over which only a few years ago the whole country would have
been engaged in a fratricidal struggle.
Señor Batlle y Ordoñez was an autocratic democrat; desiring and firmly,
even obstinately, determined, to rule as absolutely as any Tsar in what
he conceived to be the true interests of all classes of the population.
The present writer well remembers hearing him, on the first day of the
great general strike of 1911, addressing the strikers from the balcony of
Government House at Montevideo.
He told them that were it not for his high office he would be among them
and with them; counselled them to stand firmly for their rights; and
wound up with a warning that any acts of intimidation or violence on
their part would not only injure their just cause, but expose the guilty
parties to extremely severe punishment.
By way of underlining this last wholesome admonition, Martial Law was
immediately declared, and the next day saw the town filled with Horse,
Foot and Artillery. This move (which caused some doubt in the mind of
the extreme Labour Party as to which way the Presidential wind was
really blowing), and the fact that the flags, illuminations and firework
installations were already nailed up for the celebration of the Centenary
of Artígas, the National Hero, whose memory has of late years been
completely whitewashed by the National Historians, caused the strike to
fizzle out and all hands to join, a day or two later, in festivities the
brilliance of which confirmed the reputation of the Montevideans as past
masters of artistic illumination.
The only net result of the strike appeared to be the fining, in the
strict terms of its concession, of the Montevideo Tramways Company for
neglecting to run cars according to schedule during a period when it was
physically impossible for it to have done so. When no bread was baked
and even doctors were forced by the strike leaders to abandon the use
of their carriages; when, in fact, the whole city kept a sabbath during
which no man might do any manner of work. A state of things enforced by
patrols of strikers armed with revolvers—until the troops of their friend
the President suddenly appeared upon the scene.
Of both Argentina and Uruguay it may be said that their Constitutions,
Laws (National and Provincial) and Municipal by-laws and regulations
are as nearly perfect models of what such things should be as can well
be imagined. If they were not sometimes honoured in the breach of them
and if isolated provisions were not sometimes hauled out to meet cases
pretty obviously not exactly contemplated by their framers, all would
be even better in lands where, on the whole, Laws and Regulations, as
occasionally varied by tacit custom, generally work very well indeed.
Such custom, it should be noted here, is not, however, altogether
reliable and would be useless as a defence in the frequently recurring
event of some Authority or other, perhaps piqued by an ambition to
distinguish itself or to be revenged on a torpid liver, suddenly
insisting on the observance of the strict letter of the law. In that
case, several unsuspecting people get fined; journalists are inspired for
paragraphs and even articles; a, say, three days’ wonder is created; and
custom resumes her sway until the next temporary upheaval.
The writer once lived in a district of Argentina where, as elsewhere
in that country, all dairy farmers must, under penalty, use milk cans
duly certified and marked by the Authority appointed for that purpose,
as being according to standard measure. A fee is payable on each can
so certified. One day, being in a curious mood, one not uncommon in
journalists, he asked Authority to show him the standard measures. The
latter, a good fellow, was pleased to consider the writer as another; so
he laughed and said he had never seen nor asked to have such a thing. He
knew that all these milk-cans were turned out accurately enough by the
manufacturers. So what was the use of bothering further? He just marked
them and took the fee.
Some day, he or his successor or a colleague of some other district, will
be caught by some Higher Authority in a fit of zeal and made an example
of. Someone will get a profitable contract to furnish Standard milk-cans
throughout the Republic, these will duly get lost or be appropriated
by Authority’s wife for household purposes, and dairymen’s cans will be
certified on sight as before.
It is only just to say that this story is rather illustrative of
Argentine life than Uruguayan: the Uruguayan generally takes more strict
a view of his duties and obligations than his over-river cousin.
But to return to our subject. Generally speaking, and especially in
Argentina with its Provincial Autonomy, the further one journeys from
the National Capital the slacker and more irregular one finds the
administration of Laws and By-Laws, the greater the resemblance of the
manners and methods of Authority to that of the Kadi under a palm tree.
And the more one realizes the truth of the proverb that while one man
may steal a horse another may not look over a gate. In country districts
personal influence is wellnigh everything. If one be on good terms with
the Municipal Intendente (Mayor) or the Comisario of Police (it is
generally a case of being friendly, if at all, with both and the other
members of the official clique; all usually to be found together in the
same bar or restaurant), the law looks very indulgently on one, and at a
pinch will turn a blind eye to one’s, really only humorous, peccadillos.
If not, one must walk carefully like Agag until one has gathered
common sense enough to approach Authority in a properly friendly (and
acceptable) spirit.
Does the Comisario’s horse go lame, he will ask you to lend him one. You
do so, saying at the same time that you have no further need of it. And
the next time you have trouble with your peons, or anyone else with less
influence than yourself, send for the Comisario, he will soon straighten
the matter out for you. Even if your trouble be with an equal or superior
in influence, smiling Authority will discover a _modus vivendi_ and
drinks all round will seal the friendly compact. It is seldom one meets
anyone who is not on good terms with his Authorities. Not to be so would
remind one of the story of Carnot, who refused to stand in with Napoleon
I. The Emperor told him frankly that he who was not with him was against
him, and that he, Carnot, was much too powerful a person with the people
to be permitted to be at large in France under the latter condition. He
must be exiled, and had better see Fouché on the matter.
Carnot went; and, addressing Fouché, asked sternly, “Where must I go?
Traitor!” “Wherever you like. Imbecile!” was Fouché’s cynical retort.
So, in Argentine rural ethics, if you are not friendly with Authority
you have only your own folly to thank for the usually inconvenient
consequences.
It is wonderful how much money Authority has to spend on amusement when
it gets a day or two’s holiday in Buenos Aires; and it is great fun as
well as good policy to go round with him, if you also are in funds.
Argentine Authority seldom gives or expects anything for nothing; but
usually is a pleasant enough fellow withal, if taken the right way.
The Uruguayan, in such regards as in all others, is a less sophisticated
and, in country districts, a more primitively minded person; though
always hospitable, usually courteous in his manner, and particularly so
to strangers.
The most exalted Governmental spheres, those of the National Governments
in the Cities of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, respectively, are nowadays
almost entirely free from any suggestion of the mildest form of even
technical corruption. It certainly is easier to obtain a personal
interview with the President or a Minister if one personally knows one
of his intimate friends or subordinate officials; but that is all that
influence really amounts to as regards any question affecting overseas
Commerce, Concessions or Foreign Affairs. In regard to home politics,
doubtless a good deal of intrigue is constantly at work at Government
House in Buenos Aires, but those are matters which the foreign settler
leaves exclusively to the Argentines themselves. So long as they do
nothing which may affect trade or credit, even the representatives of
the largest foreign interests are careful to avoid any act or word which
might savour of interference in the sole management by the Argentine of
purely Argentine affairs. As has been indicated elsewhere in these pages,
such interference is the one thing regarding which the Argentine is very
jealously suspicious. He may have framed most of his Constitution on that
of the United States, but he never would have permitted the States or
anyone else to do it for him.
Apart from the transparent incorruptibility, from without, at all events,
of all members of the National Governments of both Republics, there
is a pleasant free-and-easiness about the manner of Presidential and
Ministerial receptions.
The _salons_ in which all-comers are received are large, airy and well
lighted; and are furnished with leather-covered sofas, seated on which
visitors wait their turn for the President or Minister to grant them a
few words of conversation; during which his Excellency sits down on the
sofa beside them, cigarette in hand like everyone else in the room.
At a longer, special, conference, coffee also is served, hot in winter
and iced in summer, even in the offices of subordinate officials; and
rumour has it that it is over this inexhaustible supply of Nationally
provided coffee and cigarettes that internal politics are “made.”
In Argentina politics of this kind are kaleidoscopic; groups and
individuals forming fresh combinations and antagonisms too rapidly and
from too deeply underlying motives for anyone not profoundly versed and
continually engaged in the game to be able to follow it with anything
approaching comprehension.
Much of this has doubtless disappeared under the influence of Dr. Saenz
Peña; whose fearlessly honourable nature judged, and judged rightly, that
the National Government of Argentina is now in a position to face without
apprehension any public opinion of its acts and policy.
Naturally the spirit of intrigue, the love of which, almost for itself,
has roots deep down in Argentine human nature, cannot yet be reckoned
as dead; but it is certainly in the course of being driven further and
further away from the centres of higher civilization by a superior
ethical conception of the duties of Government; even as the long-horned
native cattle have been ousted to frontier districts by the appreciation
by Estancieros of the incomparable advantages, to themselves, of
Shorthorns and Herefords.
In Uruguay there always has been much less tendency to intrigue. There,
a man was a Red or a White, a conscientious supporter of the Rural or
Urban party. While as for Finance the Commercial Community has always
and unswervingly seen to it that its realm be kept clean and untarnished
by even the breath of scandal. It may here be objected that now and
again, foreign concessionaires have made bargains with the National
Government strangely profitable to themselves. The true answer to such
an observation would be that in such cases the Government has invariably
been the quite innocent victim of greater experience and far-sightedness
in such matters than its own advisers had ever had opportunity to attain.
Uruguayans would maintain the National credit by emptying their own
private pockets if need be and, in fact, have expressed their intention
of doing so on more than one occasion when, as is mentioned in another
chapter, the Government allowed itself to be frightened into proposals
for issues of paper currency not founded on a strictly gold basis.
A proceeding which would have spelt repudiation of a portion of the
National liabilities; in the manner of the Argentine “Conversion Law.”
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. And it is no sign of bias to
give Uruguay credit for plain facts which incontrovertibly prove her
sense of the sanctity of moral as well as legal obligation.
True, she was never in quite such a financial tangle as that in which
Argentina found herself in 1891; but she has often been poverty-stricken,
and yet has always paid to the utmost centesimo.
Generally, it may be said that a similar honesty prevails in all branches
of Government and fiscal affairs throughout Uruguay.
For a glance at some small ways that are dark and tricks that are vain,
before these are entirely swept away, as they now are being, before
the healthy wind of moral improvement (healthy even though, as some
cynics assert, it has been raised only by perception of the fact that
in the long run, honesty is the best policy) one must go to distant
parts of Argentina and there grope amid the intricacies of Provincial
and Municipal Administration. There, undoubtedly, we may come across
semi-obscure corners from which a highly respectable chartered accountant
would fly horror-stricken. But we should also recognize that the whole
small fabric of intrigue and petty robbery is a Punchinello’s secret;
well known to and sympathetically approved by the whole surrounding
populace, whose attitude to the robber is that of “Good luck to him! I
should do the same if I had his chance.” Of no use to endeavour to stir
up public opinion to demand the prosecution or dismissal of Authorities
or Officials who are perfectly well known to have been defrauding the
public for years.
Not a bit of it. You would only get for an answer, “What? get rid of
him now that he’s fat and get a lean one in his place who would be far
worse!” Meaning that a needy man would steal more than a rich one. Local
opinion would hold that that way lay madness only; and the would-be
reformer would be merely regarded with pitying scorn.
No. The change is coming and coming rapidly with the spirit of the age,
and cannot be hastened in its inevitable course; and this change will
be thorough, for it will only encounter the ineffectual opposition of a
quite infantile dishonesty which has never seriously tried to keep secret
the practices which its vanity considered as so much evidence of its own
admirable cleverness.
Do you think the milk-can inspector did not delight in telling that he
had never seen a standard measure? Of course he did; and a Municipal
Intendente of a small country town gets just as much pleasure from the
knowledge that, while ten men appear on his Municipality’s monthly
wage-sheets as road-menders, there are in fact only two and the remaining
eight receipts are signed, for a consideration, per signature, by
independent persons. A proceeding which, of course, is perfectly well
known to and indeed accepted as immemorial custom by the general public.
In these cases no one ever gets caught; because those chiefly concerned
have always a pull in Provincial politics—otherwise they would never have
found themselves occupying the positions they are in.
But, as the reader can see, all these are childish things; already
vanishing and soon to be completely put away by the general and swift
advance, moral as well as material, of the Republic.