HOW THE MONEY GOES
Buenos Ayres has somehow achieved the reputation of being “the most
expensive city in the world.” But this is not, strictly, correct; for, in
my experience, Rio de Janeiro can give it some points and a beating in
this respect, and even its near neighbour, Montevideo, on the northern
shore of the River Plate, is, in a way presently to be explained, more
expensive. To the stranger, however, it is always difficult to understand
or account for the wide differences between the living expenses in the
principal South American cities, and Buenos Ayres and Montevideo offer a
good illustration of this. In the former, “old River Platers” and natives
alike will tell you that the cost of living is higher in Montevideo, and
this has been confirmed to me on many occasions by visitors to the latter
city. But when living for some five months in Montevideo, and finding
all the commodities of life more costly than in Buenos Ayres, it seemed
odd to be told by natives that so long as they could get profitable
occupation in the Uruguayan capital, they would not think of changing to
the Argentine metropolis where life was so much more expensive.
After comparing notes with many acquaintances in both towns, and
contrasting these with my own experiences, I came to the conclusion
that while the householder in Buenos Ayres is confronted with economic
conditions which make for excessively high cost of living, a person
in the same position in Montevideo lives relatively cheaper, as house
rents, criminally high in Buenos Ayres, are moderate in the other city,
and domestic labour is somewhat cheaper, while facilities for securing
food stuffs are greater and the market prices relatively less. But to
the stranger who does not take a house in either city, and prefers the
comfortless freedom of hotel life, the conditions are exactly reversed,
so that Montevideo would appear to a casual observer the more expensive
city in which to live.
The main reason for this is the short-sighted policy of the hotel-keepers
in the Uruguayan capital, which, during the summer months—December,
January, and February—is an increasingly popular place of resort for
wealthy Argentines and the no less wealthy _hacendados_ from the
Uruguayan “Camp.” The hotels, then crowded beyond all possibilities of
accommodation,—so that I have known an Argentine Minister of State glad
to occupy a bathroom, from which he noisily refused to be ejected in
the morning to permit of other guests turning the room to its proper
uses—raise their prices to absurd heights, and when the season suddenly
collapses, the managers still endeavour to screw from their lingering
guests as near an approach as possible to the season’s prices. Montevideo
hotels that three or four years ago were charging from $3.50 to $4.00
per day (the Uruguayan dollar is worth two cents more than the American)
now demand in the season from seven to nine dollars for accommodation
which consists of one small room, with full board, half a dollar extra
having to be paid for each bath taken on the premises! When I protested
against this extra charge for baths, the hotel-keeper said that under
no circumstances was he prepared to deduct it, as water in Montevideo
was “dearer than wine,” because a _maldita_ English company owned the
waterworks, and made the poor townspeople pay dearly for the privilege
of keeping themselves clean. Under the circumstances, my wife and I were
quite willing to substitute the cheaper wine for the water, but even this
condescension on our part did not meet with his approval.
Certain it is that, although Buenos Ayres cannot really maintain the
proud claim to be the most expensive city in the world—for I defy you to
beat the record of four dollars paid by an acquaintance of mine in Rio
de Janeiro for one cake of Pears’ soap, a small packet of tooth-powder,
and four ounces of tobacco, all bought in the same shop!—it is in all
conscience one of the most remarkably easy places in the world for
getting rid of money quickly. Mr. Punch’s immortal Scotsman who wasn’t
in London half an hour before “bang went saxpence” would assuredly
have had an apoplectic fit within a quarter of an hour of arriving in
Buenos Ayres. Fortunately, the preliminary shocks, which ought to be the
severest, are the least felt, for one takes some little time to become
familiarised with the relative values of the money, and not until one can
instantly figure the American or English values of the Argentine notes he
is paying away does he quite realise how rapidly his hard-earned cash is
slipping from him.
The real unit of value in most transactions is the paper _peso_,—these
notes are usually so dirty that they are in very truth “filthy lucre”—and
as the exchange stands about 11.4 to the English sovereign (the standard
throughout South America), it will be seen that a peso is value for about
42 cents. Many English residents, in endeavouring to regulate their
expenditure, follow the somewhat simple plan of reckoning a peso as a
shilling. This method certainly saves worry, though it is extremely bad
finance, and worse, when it is known that, even reckoned as a shilling,
the peso can purchase nothing that is the equivalent of a shilling’s
worth in England. Thus bad begins, but worse remains behind, for,—as we
shall all too surely find,—not only have we often to spend three times,
and sometimes four times the value of English money to secure what the
English unit would have obtained at home, but the article so bought will
often prove to be _falsificado_,—a shoddy imitation!
But what most strikes the observer at first is the seeming negligence
with which the Buenos Ayrian throws his money about, and the brazen
audacity of the shopkeeper, as illustrated by the price he places upon
his wares. The one is, of course, a resultant of the other, though,
obviously, there must be other forces at work to inflate prices. Mainly,
we have to bear in mind that in this great city, perhaps the most
cosmopolitan in the world, with a population of nearly a million and
a half gathered from the ends of Earth, a motley multitude of money
grubbers, money is the only standard of value. Thus, an art dealer
who placed a statue in his window and ticketed it at a reasonable
figure, leaving to himself a fair profit after importing it at a fair
price, would not long continue to thrive in Buenos Ayres. A very large
percentage of the spending class are people who have come by their
money easily, and, lacking all knowledge alike of commercial values and
intrinsic worth, can judge only that a thing is good or bad according as
the seller prices it. It is a happy state of affairs this, which cannot
last forever, and already there are signs that the Golden Age is passing.
In October of 1912, for instance, I witnessed a portentous demonstration,
in which a hundred thousand citizens took part, to petition the
Government and Municipality for some immediate legislative action to
lessen the cruel burden of the common people, to whom high wages and
brisk trade mean absolutely nothing, in view of the excessive prices for
the merest necessaries of life. To this I shall make further reference in
the present chapter.
I remember how impressed I was in one of my earliest walks, window gazing
in Calle Florida, by the curious care certain shopkeepers had taken to
display articles which in New York would have been heaped in tray-loads
and ticketed, “Anything in this basket 20 cts.” In fancy goods dealers’,
for example, insignificant little purses and common pencil-holders,
cheap fountain pens and little desk calendars, paper knives, and all
the familiar odds and ends which are classed under the generic head of
“fancy goods,” were not crowded into the window, as with us, suggesting
overflowing richness of stock, but were each disposed in solitary state
at respectful distance from one another, much as though they were
valuable jewels, and indeed when one noted the prices, they might have
been precious stones, for a leather purse which would sell in New York
for a dollar would there be ticketed relatively at $3. I paid exactly
$3.15 for a small loose-leaf pocket book, an exact copy of which I had
previously bought in London for $1.30.
The chief disparity between English and South American prices is found in
articles of clothing, which, fortunately for most temporary residents,
is a matter that does not greatly trouble them, as it is always possible
to take sufficient clothing to last one for a considerable period. But
certainly when you see an ordinary straw hat, that would sell in the
Strand, London, for $1.25 ticketed somewhere around $4 you are inclined
to catch your breath. The common “bowler,” that sells in London at $1.50
will cost you anything from four to five dollars; while the average price
for a suit of clothes made to measure in Buenos Ayres, equivalent in all
respects to a suit costing twenty dollars in London, is fifty dollars.
Consequently, many Argentines have their measure taken by a London
tailor, who, charging them thirty dollars for a suit (thus leaving an
unusual margin of profit to himself) enables the purchaser, after paying
$10 import duty, to wear an actual London made suit for 20 per cent. less
than he can get one of inferior quality made in Buenos Ayres.
To give anything like an exhaustive list of the excessive prices charged
for the simplest necessities in the way of personal clothing might be to
lay oneself open to the charge of exaggeration, except that, fortunately,
I have preserved several newspaper advertisements as evidence of the
_bona fides_ of any statements I have made, should these ever be called
in question. So far as clothing is concerned, I shall limit myself to
the further statement that on the day of my leaving Buenos Ayres for
travel further afield, I bought one dozen pairs of common socks, which in
London sell for 40 cts. a pair, and paid for these exactly forty pesos,
or $1.40 per pair. This was one of the few occasions, during my stay in
South America, when I found it necessary to purchase any articles of
personal wear, and afterwards on looking at the prices in New York and
London stores, I congratulated myself very heartily that I went forth
to my adventures in South America well stocked. I remember an English
traveller, whose business takes him to Buenos Ayres for three months of
every year, stating in the most emphatic manner that he would rather
walk down Florida in his shirt tail than commit the economic crime of
purchasing a stitch of clothing in the town,—and he was not a Scotsman!
It might be thought that the Gringo was a legitimate object of prey for
the harpy shopkeepers of Buenos Ayres, but it is not so. The present
writer, being not only competent to ask for anything in the native
language, but, when occasion serves, to engage in heated and lengthy
discussion in that delightful tongue, never found it possible to secure
better terms than were granted to any Gringo who could not utter a
sentence of Spanish. It is not a case of one tariff for the native
and, another for the foreigner, as we find in Paris and other European
resorts. The native pays as highly—and, from long practice, much more
cheerfully—for all that he buys, as the stranger.
In proof of this, I cannot quote a better example than that afforded
by an incident in which the silk hat of my native secretary figured
somewhat eminently. He had been wearing it one Sunday at some special
function—for the “stove pipe” is throughout Latin America the symbol of
importance and of special occasions, as it used to be in England—and,
happening to be caught in a heavy shower, he required to send it round to
the hatter’s for ironing next morning. His wife, also a native, speaking
only Spanish, called in and took the hat back home (errand boys are at a
premium). The charge made for merely ironing the hat was 4 pesos ($1.68).
The good lady had no idea whether this was much or little, but her
husband considered it a trifle excessive, as he, having lived some little
time in New York, and having found it possible to have a hat ironed
there for 10 cents went round to the Buenos Ayres hatter, and after much
argument succeeded in recovering two pesos, or 50 per cent. of the charge
from that gentleman, who was quite indifferent to the business, and told
him to keep his old hat at home, as he had no wish to iron anybody’s hats!
That is the spirit in which all repairing business is done. If you want
anything repaired, you have got to pay so much that it is about as cheap
to buy a new article. One day my watch stopped: the spring was not
broken, and evidently it was only some slight fault, requiring, probably,
a speck of oil. I left it with the watchmaker and asked him to regulate
it. Calling next day, the watch was ready and going perfectly well, but
to my surprise I was asked to pay eight pesos ($3.35) for the craftsman’s
skill and labour in putting it right.
[Illustration: THE LUXURIOUS DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE OF BUENOS AYRES.
The immense building seen in the background of the upper illustration
is the home of the Paz family in the Plaza San Martín; the lower view
shows a typical “quinta,” or country house of an Argentine magnate in the
suburbs.]
“Oh, evidently the mainspring was broken when you charge so much,” I
remarked.
“No, sir, the mainspring was not broken,” he replied.
“Then surely one of the jewels must have fallen out, or there was
something to replace, to justify so heavy a charge.”
“No, none of the jewels was missing, but it was quite a difficult little
job, and, besides, we do not like to repair watches,”—which was all the
satisfaction I was able to secure for parting with eight pesos!
On mentioning my experience that afternoon to an Englishman of longer
residence in the city, he remarked that these were the sort of things
that never could happen to one after two or three years, because one
soon discovered it was cheaper to buy, as you can, a good useful 5 peso
American watch, and whenever it goes out of order, throw it away and buy
another.
There is a perfectly reasonable explanation of this. Workmanship, artisan
skill, labour of all sorts, are the commodities at highest premiums in
Buenos Ayres. People are making their money, reaping fortunes, not from
honest, productive workmanship and exercise of creative skill, as in
North American and in other settled industrial countries, but merely from
sale and exchange. The men who grow rich are the agents, the middle-men,
and it is the middle-men who are taking back as quickly as they can from
the wage-earners the high salaries which the latter can easily obtain
but not so easily retain. The stationer, for instance, who sold me for
ten pesos a mechanical pencil sharpener, which my office boy immediately
broke by carelessly inserting the point of the pencil, charged five
pesos to repair the little machine. His business was to sell at a profit
what he had imported from Europe, but not to supply skill and labour to
put anything right.
As rather an inveterate smoker, and one with a preference for cigars,
I recall how disappointed I was to be told by the captain of the ship
on which I sailed to the River Plate, that there was probably no place
in the world where cigars were so bad or so expensive as in Buenos
Ayres. I cherished for a time some faint hope that this was perhaps
a sweeping generalisation founded on unfortunate experience, but I
must bear witness to its general accuracy. The cigar shops are many of
them most beautifully appointed, fitted up with a luxury rare even in
London or New York. In not one of them is there a smokable cigar to be
had at less than 60 centavos (roughly 25 cts.) and in order to enjoy
something approximating to the pleasure of a fine Cuban cigar, which
would sell in New York for 40 cts., you will have to disburse at least
3 pesos, or $1.25. It is a custom among the Argentines, who are notably
abstemious, to invite a friend to smoke a cigar, under circumstances
where an American or Englishman would ask him to “have a drink.” Often
I have noticed at the tobacconist’s a gentleman taking in a friend to
“stand” him a cigar, and seldom, if he is a gentleman who values his
self-respect and reputation in the community, will he offer a friend
anything less than a cigar that cost three pesos. It is naturally a
biggish cigar, and it will certainly have a very wide band, with a good
splash of gilt on it, and it will probably smoke not quite so well as a
25-ct. cigar sold in Broadway. So far as I could discover, the moist
atmosphere deteriorates the imported Havannas. Locally made imitations
are concocted from Brazilian tobacco, packed up in disused Havanna
boxes and hawked among the offices by men who pretend to have smuggled
them into the country without paying duty. Admirably “faked” as to
outward appearance—for the art of falsification is one of the few local
industries that flourish in Buenos Ayres—these cigars can deceive no one
after the first puff, but thousands of boxes are annually sold to ready
buyers, who, unable to afford the shop prices, at least make a pretence
of smoking Havannas, though they know quite well they are being fobbed
off with cheap Brazilian tobacco. Cigars are sold at all sorts of prices,
from 20 centavos upwards, and occasionally it is possible to smoke one
sold at 50 centavos, as I had frequently to do at my hotel, where I
was charged one peso for a cigar, on the band of which 50 centavos was
printed. Representing to the manager that 42 cents seemed a good deal to
pay for a 21-cent cigar, the value of which in New York would not have
exceeded ten cents, he blandly assured me that they always charged a peso
for a 50 centavo cigar in the hotel!
Hotel prices are naturally in excess of all shop prices in Buenos Ayres,
as elsewhere, and of course there are degrees even among the hotels.
At one hotel where some of the modern comforts common to the better
class of hotels in London or New York may be obtained, the tariff is so
formidable that even an Argentine millionaire whose acquaintance I made,
and who had been making the hotel his headquarters for a year or two
instead of living in a town house, told me that he would have to quit,
as he felt it was little short of sinful to pay the weekly bill with
which he was presented. Another gentleman, the manager of a very large
industrial concern in England, whose market is mainly in the Argentine,
was spending several months in Buenos Ayres during my stay, and left
the palatial hotel in question to come to the more modest establishment
where we two Gringos put up. In talking over the relative charges with
me, he said that while we had to pay enough in all conscience for what we
received (and for which no praying could have made us “truly thankful”!),
there was at least the difference between paying excessively for very
common fare and having your money literally “taken away from you.”
Yet the hotel in question, thanks to the extraordinary difficulty of
obtaining competent assistants at reasonable wages, and to the famine
prices which must be paid for every domestic commodity, as well as the
immense capital that has to be invested in steel frames, reinforced
concrete, and furnishings, is no very profitable business for those who
conduct it. I doubt if they could charge less than they do! This was
often my experience when I came to inquire into what seemed altogether
unreasonable prices: to find that those who seemed to be imposing on one
were really asking no more than the circumstances warranted.
All the same, a knowledge of the economic conditions does not greatly
help you to look with approval upon a charge of $2.35 for placing a bunch
of about six roses and half-a-dozen other flowers in a bowl on your table
at dinner when you are entertaining a couple of guests, especially if,
as you happen to know for certain, the said flowers have been left over
from a wedding celebration in the hotel the evening before. On several
occasions this was the charge which appeared on our weekly bill for
decorating our little table in the gorgeous manner described. Myself,
having scant use for alcoholic beverages, my main expenses on liquids
touched “soft drinks.” Certainly the prices were hard enough. I have
retained some of our hotel bills as reminders. From these I extract the
following interesting items: One bottle of San Pellegrino Water, 55 cts.;
Salus Water, 70 cts.; Small Apollinaris, 35 cts.; Schweppe’s Soda, 58
cts.; Vichy, 55 cts.; Small Perrier, 35 cts. As most visitors make it a
point never to drink the water of the town, and can easily dispose of
several bottles of Perrier or Schweppe’s Soda per day during the hot
weather, the reader can figure what proportions the weekly bill for
mineral waters will reach, and it must be borne in mind that the figures
given are those charged at a hotel of an extremely modest character. Nor
would these prices appear so excessive if each bottle contained what was
indicated on the label. There is no security that such is the case, and
I know that many a time have I had to accept some local concoction put
forth in the guise of an imported European mineral water.
I also find some notes as to alcoholic drinks in our hotel bills, which
will give some notion of the casual expenses of entertaining friends.
For a bottle of Guinness’ Stout, 45 cts.; for a glass of Tonic Water and
Gin, 50 cts.; for a bottle of Chandon, $5.30; the same for a bottle of
Veuve Clicquot; Chateau Lafitte, $3; and so on. It will be noticed that
the disparity between American and Argentine prices in the matter of
alcoholic drinks is less glaring than in the case of mineral waters. But
I find an occasional item in these weekly bills which probably touches
the high water mark of imposition. Under the heading of “Alcohol,” we
were charged from time to time 75 cts. for a pint bottle of methylated
spirits for use in a small spirit lamp!
Apart altogether from the normal excessive charges in the ordinary
hotels, which one comes to accept without demur simply because they are
universal, a further stage of imposition is to be noted in the swindling
propensities of restaurant employees. Thus, I have a note that I was once
made to pay $1.05 for one glass of tonic water and gin which I “stood”
a friend, and on various occasions I was charged 63 cts. for a glass of
whisky and soda, while I had myself consumed frequent glasses of hot
water with half-a-lemon squeezed therein and a spoonful of sugar added,
at a charge of 27 cts., before I realised that a portion of these casual
expenses was finding its way into the pocket of the gentleman with the
shifty eyes who presided over a certain “bar” where the drinks were
obtained. But the hotel charge of 62 cts. for half an hour’s game of
billiards, which conformed in every particular to that imagined by W. S.
Gilbert as the punishment of the billiard sharper,—
“On a cloth untrue, with a twisted cue,
And elliptical billiard balls,”—
seemed to me at once an insult and an injury.
Mentioning petty swindling on the part of employees reminds me that the
favourite dodge is to return the change of a five peso bill when a ten
peso bill has been presented. My patience, though seared by many tiny
swindles mutely borne, was never equal to taking the five-pesos-for-ten
trick “lying down.” I first became acquainted with it, soon after my
arrival, at Retiro station, when taking out a ticket for Hurlingham,
the British suburban resort. Presenting a ten peso bill at the booking
office, the clerk hastily handed me my ticket and the change of a five
peso bill, which fact I discovered only on examining my change after
leaving the window. But even at that early period of my stay, my command
of the language was good enough to enable me to return to the window
and hold up the entire crowd of would-be ticket-buyers, by informing
the clerk that I intended to stay there until he handed me another five
pesos. He brazenly denied that I had presented a ten peso bill, but on my
stoutly asserting that I intended remaining in front of his window till
I received another five pesos, he forthwith met my demand, and thereby
advertised himself to the entire company the thief he undoubtedly was. I
do not exaggerate when I state that on dozens of occasions I had to draw
the attention of shop assistants and waiters (especially on dining cars)
to the fact that they had made this slight error in my change. When it
is remembered that five pesos is no less a sum than $2.10, it will be
understood that some slight knowledge of the language is desirable when
one goes a-shopping among the petty swindlers of Buenos Ayres.
Perhaps the very apex of audacity in the matter of excessive prices is
reached by the chemists, who ought surely to be the richest trades
people in all South America. It was our unfortunate experience, as
indeed it is the experience of most Northerners who have to live for
any length of time in these parts, to be fairly frequent patrons of the
drug shop. But no amount of experience reconciled us to the prices that
were exacted. Nor do I think the natives ever purchased anything without
an inward or outward protest, as I was frequently present at disputes
between customer and chemist. I recall particularly a youth who had been
sent by his employer to fetch some medicine that had been dispensed for
him, and on offering all the money his employer had given him to pay
for the medicine, he was found to have brought less than half the price
demanded by the chemist.
It was my wife’s unfortunate fate to have to consume a large number of
_cachets_, prescribed by a Porteño doctor, and these I had to purchase
weekly at a well-known drug store, paying $2.10 for thirty, the price of
which in London would have been 60 cents. Out of curiosity, after two
or three weeks, I took the prescription to another chemist—as there is
one at every other street corner, the choice is ample—and was supplied
with precisely the same articles at $1.05. But the following week,
when I returned for a new supply, I was charged $2.10, as at the other
chemist’s! On my protesting that I had only paid half that price the
previous week, I was informed that as they had a somewhat limited supply
of a certain drug used in the prescription, they were forced to charge
an increased price, and had therefore added 100 per cent. to the first
charge! These prices are typical of everything sold in the chemists’
shops; from soap to chest protectors, there is not a single item that
will not cost the purchaser from three to five times the price at which
it may be bought in the stores of New York or London.
It will thus be seen that it is a somewhat expensive business to be
ill in South America, and as most people, natives included, seem to
be in a continual state of recovering from illness (so much so that a
familiar greeting among the natives is “_Buenas días, y como le pasa su
estómago?_”—“Good morning, and how’s your stomach?”), the harvest of
the chemist fails less frequently than that of the agriculturist. The
commonest class of doctor charges a fee of $4.15 if you call upon him
for a few minutes’ consultation and are fortunate enough to be admitted
before his two hours of work are over, as you will usually find a roomful
of patients awaiting his attention. If you indulge in the luxury of
inviting a visit from him at your house, his charge will be $8.30, which
must be paid on the nail, while payment for a consultation at his rooms
is either made to an attendant before entering, or to the doctor himself
on leaving. A simple operation, such as that for appendicitis, will cost
you anything from $250 to $1000.
Returning again to the smaller items of daily expense which help to drain
your earnings away from you as quickly almost as you receive them, I
find I have a few further notes worthy of record. At the hotel where we
lived, two English servants suddenly appeared. They had been attracted to
Buenos Ayres as the new Eldorado, and wages of forty pesos a month had
seemed to them the beginning of fortune, especially when they estimated
the possibilities of “tips.” But one of them, requiring to buy a new hat
after her first fortnight in the city, and being charged twenty-three
pesos for the same (about $10), which in London she would have considered
fairly expensive at $1.70, she and her companion very speedily made up
their minds to return home, prepared to be a little more contented with
the conditions they had so lately despised. A peso and a half (63 cts.)
was a common charge for hair-cutting—a simple haircut, no shampoo or
singeing included, mark you.
As for theatre charges, the opera save in the gallery—where anybody
who has any reputation to maintain in the town can not afford to be
seen—is possible only to the wealthy, and consequently it is seldom
visited by English residents, except when honoured by an invitation
from some Argentine friend. A seat in the pit of the commonest theatre
costs about $1.30. There is a curious system of paying for your seat
and afterwards paying a peso for the privilege of entering the theatre!
The cinematographs, which are relatively as numerous as in New York or
Chicago, have a uniform charge of 85 cts. for an entertainment that
compares badly with those that charge a quarter in New York. Some of them
are run on a system of three sections per evening, the admission being 25
cts. to each section, but these are of the cheaper class.
In short, there is no necessity or luxury of life for which one has not
to pay many times more in Buenos Ayres or in Montevideo than in any North
American or European city. Every instance I have taken from my personal
experience, and beyond these there are doubtless hundreds of examples
quite as remarkable, or perhaps still more noteworthy, for various
newcomers with whom I came into touch, who were settling in the city
and under the necessity of furnishing flats or houses, were uniformly
aghast at the prices they were asked to pay for the most modest items of
furniture, while house rents would have turned a Fifth Avenue landlord
green with envy. I had personally to buy many items of office furniture,
the prices of which I do not recall, with the exception of a polished
oak table of North American manufacture, which in London would not have
fetched more than $15, but which cost me exactly $70. I also remember
that a none-too-ostentatious writing-desk of similar origin cost me
upwards of $125.
[Illustration: TERMINUS OF THE SOUTHERN RAILWAY AT PLAZA CONSTITUCION,
BUENOS AYRES.]
No wonder such conditions of life should be pressing heavily on the
resident population, with whom _la carestía de la vida_ has become an
all-absorbing topic of conversation. During my stay, as I have already
mentioned, a strong movement was initiated by the popular journal _La
Argentina_, in the hope of bringing about some easing of the terrible
burden, with what ultimate success I know not. But it is interesting
to quote here a few passages from the leading English daily (the
_Standard_), which, like all the Buenos Ayres journals, native and
foreign alike, is seldom severely critical of the economic conditions of
the country, being, I suppose, nervously afraid of saying anything that
might place the Argentine in an unfavourable light to foreign critics:
For some years past the Press has been urging upon the National
and Municipal authorities the necessity of adopting measures
for improving the condition of the working-classes by reducing
the cost of the necessaries of life and by providing convenient
and hygienic dwellings for workmen and their families, but
hitherto, the people having remained patiently submissive to
the economic state of things which counteracts the higher
remuneration obtainable for labour, the authorities have failed
in their duties to promote, to the utmost of their power, the
well-being of the mass of the population of this great city.
Congress has voted lavishly the resources for the embellishment
of the city, for the construction of monumental buildings
and monuments, for the acquisition of useless warships, for
the granting of hundreds of pensions to persons who have no
claim to public charity, for the sending of representatives
to congresses held in foreign countries upon subjects in
which this Republic is not interested, and special embassies
and commissions under different excuses, to enable favoured
individuals to make the tour of Europe with their families
at the expense of the public, but there is never any surplus
revenue to permit the diminution of the duties and taxes which
weigh most heavily upon the shoulders least able to bear the
burden....
The place of meeting was in the Congress plaza, to which, in
spite of the threatening state of the weather, the people
flowed from all parts of the city and suburbs, and at the
appointed time marched in orderly procession to the Plaza Mayo.
A deputation, headed by Mr. Adrian Patroni, a member of the
staff of _La Argentina_, was received in the Government House
by the Minister of Finance, Dr. Perez, who was accompanied by
his private secretary and by the Administrator of the Custom
House. Mr. Patroni presented to the Minister a petition,
together with numerous lists of thousands of signatures in
support of the petition, which asks, among other things, for
the reduction of the import duties on the necessaries of
life; for a diminution of the cost of transport of articles
of general consumption; for the erection of 10,000 houses for
workmen and their families; for the grant of sufficient funds
for paving all the streets of the suburbs in order to give work
to the unemployed as well as to improve the hygiene of the
city; for the prohibition of races on working days, and for the
closing of the hippodromes (race-courses) within five years....
Numbers of people in the procession carried placards upon
which were inscribed the requirements of the proletariat,
including, besides those mentioned in the petition, demands
for the concession of the public land, with facilities for the
payment of the same, to those who are willing to cultivate it;
for personal security for all the inhabitants of the provinces
and territories; for the improvement of the roads; for the
suppression of trusts and monopolies; for severe legislation
against usury; for regulations of the auctioneers’ profession;
for issuing bonds for 100,000,000 pesos for pavement in the
suburbs; for the reduction of license taxes on the vendors of
articles of consumption; for establishing free fairs in all
sections of the municipality; for permission to introduce the
carcasses of animals slaughtered outside the boundaries of the
Municipality.
Now what is the reason for this extraordinary expense of living? It is
not a matter that can be explained in a few sentences, so many factors
are at work to make the conditions what they are. I can at most throw
a beam of light on several of these factors. Visitors are astonished,
for instance, to be told that in a country popularly supposed to be one
of the most naturally fruitful in the world (though there is no greater
illusion), that the commonest fruits which in North America and Europe
are within the reach of the very poorest, are only to be enjoyed in
Buenos Ayres by the rich. The country is almost destitute of native
fruit-bearing trees; it is naturally a treeless, bushless, wilderness
of rich, loamy soil, capable of producing enormous crops of grain if
properly cultivated, or of maintaining almost fabulous herds of cattle.
The contents of the orchards and vineyards that do exist must be reckoned
as exotics. Few people, indeed, seem to trouble about the cultivation
of fruit or vegetables, though the vineyards round about Mendoza on the
Andine frontier, and Bahía Blanca in the south of the Province of Buenos
Ayres, show what unlimited possibilities the soil possesses for the vine.
Cattle and grain have occupied (and not unnaturally) the energies of
the agriculturists, but fruit-growing has been comparatively neglected.
Even so, it has fallen into the hands of a vicious “ring,” who, adopting
the worst of North American methods, have set themselves to exploit the
public. In the islands of the Tigre, at carting distance from Buenos
Ayres, where fruit and to spare could be grown to supply the needs of
the capital; and across the river, in Uruguay, where there are ideal
conditions for fruit culture, and where peaches, pears, apples, and other
fruits are almost as plentiful as blackberries; this ring has seized
control, and I have been told that thousands of tons of peaches and other
fruit have been thrown into the river in a single season rather than that
the harvest, by its natural abundance, should have been permitted to
lower the market prices.
A successful English fruit-grower, attracted by the possibilities of
Buenos Ayres and the crying need for supplies, came out to study the
situation, and found that although he could easily have secured ideal
orchard land, and could have raised enormous crops of apples, pears,
peaches, and all sorts of table fruits, he would have been powerless to
have brought his products to the market in face of this sinister ring.
He, therefore, abandoned the project and returned to England. Thus,
within walking distance of orchards laden with peaches, it would cost
you 6 cts. for one, and in Montevideo the conditions are more outrageous
still, as during our summer there we bought hundreds of Californian
apples at a cost of from 16 cts. to 25 cts. each, the local product,
at best inferior to the imported, and nearly as expensive, being then
inaccessible.
One effect of this scarcity of fruit—and the vegetables are only a little
less scarce, the country people seldom tasting them!—is the vogue of
English preserves, which are served as table delicacies. Jams, which the
London workman buys at 12 cts. a pot, are dealt out in the restaurants in
spoonfuls at more than 12 cts. a helping! _Dulce inglésa_ is the line on
the _menu_ and when you ask for it (which you do but once) you find it
means a tablespoonful of common strawberry jam, and you could have had
a _peche melba_ for the money at home! Common 12 ct. pots of marmalade
are sold in Buenos Ayres at 43 cts. In Montevideo we two Gringos were
responsible for the consumption of many a tin of American fruit, such
as sells in London at 20 cts. or 25 cts., the uniform price of which in
Montevideo was 80 cts.
In the matter of manufactured articles, one naturally expects to pay
extra, since everything has to be imported from Europe or the United
States. From the latter country comes most of the polished oak office
furniture, on which there is an infamous import duty, on top of which
again the selling agents exact large profits. In this way the price
swells to four or five times the home selling cost. Import duties on
ready-made clothes and every variety of household wares are so excessive
that the original cost is augmented by 25 per cent. to 50 per cent.
before the seller secures possession of the goods. The seller in turn
has such enormous expenses in the shape of high wages to assistants and
iniquitous rentals, that he must clap on another 25 per cent. or so for
handling expenses, and finally, as he himself has heavy outgoings for his
own living and will naturally endeavour to secure some little luxuries
from the limited possibilities open to him, on must go another 25 per
cent. or more for profit.
It is thus one vicious circle, which results in everybody earning far
more money than he can earn anywhere else, and spending four or five
times more to secure about one-half of the comfort or luxury he would
expect to enjoy in any part of Europe or North America. Net result: he
is, perhaps, “ahead of the game,” but I am far from being convinced that
the European or the North American could not equally keep “ahead of the
game” in his own country, earning less, spending less, enjoying more, and
saving equally. There is, however, to some temperaments a certain delight
in having money pass freely through one’s hands, and assuredly that is
what happens in the Argentine. If the money comes easily, it goes with
equal ease, and in the getting and the going there is a certain zest
which brings with it a feeling of unusual prosperity.