BUSINESS LIFE IN BUENOS AYRES
Although I will not admit that Buenos Ayres is the most desirable place
of residence, or that I should willingly pass any considerable portion of
my life there, I can appreciate its fascination for the man of business.
I was continually meeting Britishers who would, in the crudest fashion,
contrast the Argentine capital with the cities of their Homeland, to the
total eclipse of the latter, proclaiming that there was but one place on
earth for them, and that was Buenos Ayres. But I never met an American
there who preferred it to any of the great cities of his own country.
These British exiles who so rejoice in their expatriation are undoubtedly
maintaining in their adopted city an existence that in all points of
comfort cannot be compared with that within the reach of a person of
very moderate means at home. Yet they are by no means to be regarded as
asserting loudly what they only half-believe. It is more than probable
that they are honestly convinced of what they say, and that, so far as
they are concerned, they do but utter the simple truth.
The secret of the matter lies in the fact that in the Argentine, as,
indeed, in most alert young countries, there is a quick response to the
efforts of the business man, which is but rarely experienced in the
markets of the Old World. In this progressive Republic we have the
phenomenon of some seven million people, of whom more than twenty per
cent. are accessible in one city, crying out for commodities. It is a
country almost destitute of industrial resources, lacking coal, minerals,
wood, the essential elements of industrial life, for though minerals
and wood do exist within the political delimitations of the Republic,
they are geographically distant from the centres of population. Imported
coal is extremely costly, while water power, owing to the extraordinary
flatness of the land and the sluggishness of its rivers, is difficult, if
not impossible to utilise. So that, for all practical purposes,—unless
the discovery of oil deposits in the southwest may work a revolution in
industrial possibilities,—we may regard the Argentine as a country at
present limited to the pursuits of agriculture and cattle-rearing. These
are the true bases of its wealth; for the development of these have
English capitalists poured some £150,000,000 of money into the country,
to cover it with a system of admirably constructed and well-managed
railways. Mainly on the strength of these industries, have British,
French, and other foreign investors taken up the millions of Government
Stock for the national development of the Republic. In all some
£300,000,000 of British money have been invested in the country.
Thus we may view the people as divided into two great camps: those
who work the land and breed cattle, and those who make a living (and
something to spare) by supplying the requirements of the former class,
acting as middle-men between the European or North American exporter
and the Argentine consumer. Roughly into one or other of these very
disproportionate classes every worker in the Argentine must come,
although, of course, there are endless variations of relativeness, if
one cares to search for them. It is true that here and there some slight
industrial progress falls to be noted. There is a good deal of tobacco
making; there is more than one successful paper-making enterprise; in
a timid way there is even the founding of iron; but broadly speaking,
industries, apart from the land, do not exist. It is true you can get
a table made, but it will be a very insecure table, it will also be
very expensive, and you will be sorry you did not buy an imported one.
The same applies to many other simple kinds of manufactured articles,
which might, with a little patience and care, be successfully and
profitably produced in the Argentine; but it is a safe assumption that
for many years to come,—probably not within the lifetime of the present
generation—there is no likelihood of national industry developing to
such an extent that it would be able to replace in any great measure the
imported article.
Meanwhile, the commission agent is enjoying a golden age of gain. It
is a fairly easy matter to induce people to purchase who are in a
chronic state of needing all sorts of commodities, living, as they
do, in a country which is but poorly supplied even with the commonest
necessities of modern domestic life. The commission agent has merely
to announce the fact that he has made arrangements with Messrs. So &
So, the well-known manufacturers of this or that, and will be pleased
to supply it on certain terms, for his customers to find him out and
make him busy,—granted that the article in question is one for which
there is a real need. The crudest sort of advertising, the baldest form
of announcement, will prove almost as effective as the most skilful
propaganda would at home.
So it happens you will find many British residents of the meagrest
intellectual endowments who have acquired considerable fortunes by doing
nothing more brilliant than I have indicated, but who have been lucky
enough—or shrewd enough, if you will—to secure the representation of some
useful British or American-made device, such as a windmill water-pump,
of which many thousands are in use throughout the country; a mechanical
cash register, without which no Argentine business establishment is
complete; a patent grass cutter; or almost any conceivable article of
general utility. While the primal wealth of the country may come, as it
does the world over, from the land, the most substantial profits made are
those that go into the pockets of the agents, many of them unskilled, who
handle the imported manufactured goods which the people of the country
require in exchange for their grain, their cattle, their cow-hides, and
their wool. Economically, of course, this is an unfortunate state of
things, but I am concerned not with things as they ought to be, but as
they are, and this is the present condition of the Argentine.
[Illustration: AN ARGENTINE “GAUCHO” IN HIS HOURS OF EASE]
The net result of all this is a very pronounced feeling of briskness in
almost every branch of commerce. The country is steadily progressing in
its agricultural development, the Government is steadily borrowing to
advance public works, and, except for the temporary set-back in 1913,
it may be said that credit all round has continued extremely good for
many years. Consequently, men of business do not haggle and discuss the
fractional profits with which manufacturers and merchants have now-a-days
to be content in the older countries of the world, and especially when
there is a large amount of borrowed capital floating throughout a
country, there is sure to exist something of that spendthrift feeling
which we always associate with the individual borrower. This tends to
make commercial conditions extremely “easy.” Given that A possesses the
article which B wants, or thinks he wants, or which perhaps A has told
him he ought to have, there is every likelihood that B will purchase the
same at A’s price, or, if he insists on a reduction, that will probably
be the result of a personal knowledge of A, who is most likely in the
habit of placing a specially high profit on any article he offers to B,
intending to rebate the excess of profit. This used to be the sole method
of doing business throughout the Latin-American market, and here and
there lingering traces of the Moorish system of asking double or treble
what one expects to receive for an article, may be detected.
Until quite recently, much of the shopping in Buenos Ayres was conducted
on this ancient Oriental system of beating down the seller. No Argentine
lady would ever have dreamed of paying what the shopkeeper asked her,
and, equally, no shopkeeper would ever have dreamed of asking the
customer what he expected eventually to accept; but the Argentines, more
alert than most Latin-Americans, and more anxious to put themselves in
line with Anglo-Saxon business methods, have largely abandoned this
obsolete farce, and now in most business houses and in most of the shops,
_precio fijo_ is the order of the day. The thanks of the shopkeeping
community are particularly due to the pioneer house of Messrs. Gath
& Chaves, the largest department stores in the Southern continent,
who virtually broke down the old system when they opened their great
establishments some years ago and announced that all goods would be sold
at fixed prices. At first they had to turn away innumerable customers,
who simply refused to buy unless the prices were reduced, but eventually
the battle was won for honest trading, and the system has been largely
adopted throughout the country. It is true that small dealers of divers
sorts still endeavour to maintain the ancient bluff. One day, for
instance, in the window of a bric-à-brac seller, I was attracted by a
walking-stick of a peculiar Brazilian wood. I entered, and asked him how
much he wanted for it. He named a price, the equivalent of about $18.
“I’ll give you twelve pesos ($5),” I said.
“Muy bien”—(very well), said the dealer, wearily, as he handed me the
article and accepted the money; and there seemed to be no feeling of
shame on the part of the seller at endeavouring to secure so high a
price. Assuredly, what I paid him was all the article was worth, and
probably a little more than its real value, but, assuming that I wanted
the stick, he made a shot at a price which he fancied I might pay.
This irresponsibility is characteristic of much of the business dealings
not only in Buenos Ayres, but in all the South American centres where it
has been my lot to make purchases. There is an extraordinary ignorance
of intrinsic values. The restricting of imports, the delays of the
Customs authorities (who will often hold up a valuable shipment from
three to six weeks after its arrival), the lack of competition, all
tend to the imposition of the most absurd prices. Just imagine asking
three printers in New York to estimate for a certain piece of work,
and receiving from A a quotation for $1000, from B one for $457, and
from C another of $1825. Such disparities are absolutely unthinkable
in any country where labour has been properly organised, where prices
of materials have been more or less standardised, and where the only
difference must come from the ability of one firm to save a little more
than its competitors in its working methods. Not once, but on scores of
occasions, I experienced discrepancies in estimates of which the above
illustration is typical. Hence the man of business who merely employs one
printer, without putting others in competition, may be losing heavily,
as it is folly to place any sort of order without securing two or three
checking estimates. Moreover,—and here the foolishness of the methods
adopted becomes apparent,—I have on more than one occasion invited the
printer whose estimate was highest by upwards of $500, but whose work
seemed to me the best, to accept the order at the estimate of the lowest
printer, and he has willingly done so! I also recall another printer who,
on my protesting against an overcharge on an account for $750, made a
reduction of $425, in order that I should not bar him from future work!
This slight excess occurred on some work done without estimate. The
same printer informed me that the account in question was based on the
standard rate, which for many years his house had been charging one of
the principal banks for the printing of their stationery. The reader will
scarcely wonder, therefore, that we used to remark, in discussing these
discrepancies in estimates, that it was evidently no more than a toss-up
whether you were to be asked to pay $50 or $450, and in view of this it
will be seen how essential is some expert knowledge of the work in hand
to any person who ventures to engage in business in South America.
At the same time, the spacious feeling which comes from this disregard
of small profits has its effect on the individual man of business, and
the quick results which follow the friendly attitude of the public to
all sorts of new offers is highly inspiriting. I can therefore perfectly
understand the enthusiasm of an Englishman who, perhaps only moderately
successful, or making insufficient progress at home, has emigrated to
Buenos Ayres, and is enjoying the delights of handling a rapidly growing
and remunerative business, feeling that here indeed is the only land
worth living in. For after all, to most business men their business is
their life, and as there is so little to interest any man in Buenos Ayres
outside of his office, conditions are mutually reactive, the inspiration
of the business serving to increase one’s interest in one’s work, and
the increased interest tending to increased business. In this way the
business man becomes doubly a worker, and knows not even the Saturday
afternoon holiday, an English institution that is very slowly, if at all,
creeping into even the English offices in Buenos Ayres.
Most business men have admitted to me that, while they like the place,
it is only a place for working and sleeping in, and I suspect the
majority of cherishing in their heart of hearts the hope of returning
to their native land some day for good. I have known men who have lived
there over thirty years, and who have lost every relative and friend
they ever possessed at home, go back after all and close their account
with Buenos Ayres. On the other hand, not a few I have met who, having
retired to England, to France, or to Germany, as the case may have
been, have eventually returned to settle and die in Buenos Ayres. These
are the people who say there is “a something” that draws them back.
They would even have you believe there is about South America that
strange, intangible glamour of the East, which brings most who have
lived in the Orient under its spell. This I will not believe; there is
no glamour, there is no romantic beauty, there is no sensuous delight
in the atmosphere of all South America. What happens is a far other
thing. Men become so devoted to their business, under the conditions I
have outlined, so engrossed in the mere circumstance of their prosperous
affairs, that, neglecting all other interests in life, they have nothing
left to them but their business, and when they return to their native
lands, they have not brought that with them, and where their business is
their heart is also. Glamour, no, but business, yes,—as one would say in
the phraseology of the country.
Seldom missing an opportunity of making inquiries as to the business
success of all sorts of people with whom I came into contact, I might set
forth some quite remarkable examples of how the conditions in Buenos
Ayres compare very favourably, from certain points of view, with those
at home, were it not that I hesitate to use the experience of friends in
such wise that some readers might identify them.
M. Jules Huret, in his admirable work, to which reference has already
been made, offers many notable examples of prosperous careers in
different branches of trade and commerce, related to him in his various
travels throughout the Republic; but in every case these narratives were
given for publication. I cannot fairly do the same with much of the
information in my possession, but I purpose giving, as nearly as may be,
the particulars of three comparatively young men of my acquaintance, and
contrasting their present conditions with what, in all likelihood, would
have been their positions in England had they remained at home.
The first, whom I shall distinguish as Mr. X., is a young man of very
considerable natural talent. In personal characteristics he is the very
antithesis of the “pushing” young fellow, and, I rather suspect, had
permitted others to push ahead of him at home. At all events, essaying
a venture on his own account in London, it turned out badly, and he
found it necessary to take up his profession again as an employee in
a moderately responsible position, receiving not more than $1750 per
annum. His integrity being above suspicion, his ability unquestioned in
his particular profession, which calls for much precise knowledge and
long years of study, he happened fortunately, when he applied for the
post of Manager of a very large enterprise in the Argentine, favourably
to impress the selective committee, and was engaged. In this very
responsible position he has, to my knowledge, greatly improved the
conditions of his company, extended its work, increased its profits,
sent up its shares. His remuneration, instead of being $1750 per annum,
is about $10,000, and may increase, according to results, to double that
figure. The business in which he is engaged is of the same nature as he
has been employed in all his life, and to which he was trained in the
provinces of England.
Take Mr. Y., another young man, outwardly more suggestive of liveliness,
sparkle, capacity, than Mr. X., but probably no better endowed
intellectually. Mr. Y., who is not quite thirty, is at the present
time director of the South American interests of an important English
firm, handling contracts in the Argentine and in Uruguay for hundreds
of thousands of pounds, and himself earning a salary and commission
something in the neighbourhood of $10,000 per annum. This Mr. Y. would
have had reason to count himself singularly fortunate if, remaining in
England and engaged in the same class of work, he at the present time
had been enjoying a salary of say $2500 per annum. Moreover, in common
with Mr. X., he has that splendid influence in character building which
comes from the fine sense of self-reliance imposed upon one by having
to control the destinies of many employees and decide large and vital
questions on one’s own initiative. Such positions for men of thirty to
forty are extremely few in England, but are by no means uncommon in South
America.
As regards Mr. Z., I think I may state without fear of identifying him
that his profession is that of architect. The architects in Buenos Ayres
are among the busiest of professional men. One can scarcely walk for
five minutes in any direction without noting building operations, and
for scores of years to come the more central parts of the city will be
in a state of rebuilding, as all the smaller and old-fashioned houses
are bound to give way to modern steel and concrete structures. Hence the
skill of the architect is in high request, and likely so to continue,
although it must be admitted there is plenty of competition, as Italians,
French, German, and all nationalities are represented in the ranks of the
profession. The extraordinary cosmopolitan character of the city also
justifies the variety of races among its architects, every conceivable
European style, not to mention many inconceivable styles, being favoured
by the property owners. Mr. Z., however, is an Englishman, and as an
architect I confess he is no better than the ruck, but I believe he
has the recommendation of being honest, and for that reason, if for no
outstanding ability of any other kind, he has earned substantial success,
so that it is no unusual thing for him, in the course of the year, to
find himself in pocket to the tune of $15,000 to $20,000, which, I
imagine, is by no means an ordinary sum for even an architect of unusual
ability to earn in England.
[Illustration: ITALIAN “COLONOS” AND THEIR “RANCHO” IN THE ARGENTINE]
[Illustration: A VILLAGE WHEELWRIGHT IN THE ARGENTINE “CAMP”.]
It so happens that not a single one of these young men I have mentioned
really likes Buenos Ayres, but each is delighted with his particular
work, and I am strongly of opinion that in the fulness of time they will
all become submerged in the said work. That is to say, they will go the
way of those I have already described, who, yearning at heart to be home
again, become so engrossed in their business, trade, or profession, that
unconsciously with the lapse of years they grow into veritable slaves of
their business and cannot live without it. If a man can make his fortune
under four or five years in Buenos Ayres and then withdraw, all may be
well; but beyond that time, it seems to me, the genuine fascination which
the spirited commercial life of the place exercises on any keen man of
business will become too strong to permit of his cutting the traces, and
I am just as sure that a day will come when, in totting up his profits
and losses, he will feel he ought to put down on the debit side of his
ledger of life a very large figure to represent what he has lost in his
long years of exile from his home land.
In connection with Mr. Z., I mentioned the fact of his honesty, which,
it goes without saying, applies equally to Mr. X. and Mr. Y. Here we
touch one of the most important matters in the business life of South
America. Honesty is a quality that does not bulk unduly in South American
character. Having had peculiar opportunities of testing the honesty of
the general public throughout the Argentine, Uruguay, and Chili, and
having listened to all sorts of local and foreign stories about the
shameless disregard for the ordinary usages of decent straight-forward
business said to be characteristic of one country more than another,
I am persuaded that there is little to choose in this matter between
South Americans in general, if we exclude the Indians and _mestizos_, or
half-breeds. In Buenos Ayres it takes very little searching indeed to
discover Englishmen as dishonest and unworthy of trust as any scoundrelly
native. Nay, I am not at all sure that worthless English emigrants and
English-speaking _porteños_—children born of English parents in the
Argentine, who speak both languages equally well—cannot give most of the
tricky natives and unscrupulous foreigners a strong lead in the matter of
dishonesty.
Individually, I found among the native population a very high percentage
of men of the strictest commercial integrity, men who were _caballeros
correctísimos_, not merely in the formal sense of the phrase, but in
actuality. At the same time, I am forced to confess that there is
something in the atmosphere of Buenos Ayres which seems to depreciate
the importance of business rectitude. Ask me to describe this with
any definiteness, and I am afraid I should fail, but the fact remains
that one is conscious of the feeling every day and in every business
relationship. It may be the influence of old tradition, the result of
the Argentine capital having been for so long the resort of all sorts
of foreign criminals and justice-bilkers, as much as the experience of
business men in their dealings with Buenos Ayres houses to-day. But
whatever the extent or reality of this commercial dishonesty may be, it
is a factor to be reckoned with, and in all negotiations with commercial
houses it is no doubt well to look carefully at their references if their
credentials are unknown. A _procurador_, or attorney, for instance,
who was employed very successfully in connection with certain legal
matters that came under my notice, and who did his work so well and so
profitably to those who feed him that it was suggested to establish in
other parts of the country similar connections for the recovery of debts,
said to his clients, “Unfortunately, I know of no other honest procurador
in the Argentine with whom I could co-operate in carrying out your
suggestion”! The gentleman who reported the matter to me stated that he
entirely believed his attorney spoke the truth as to the lack of honest
lawyers, and he even had his doubts about him! But how can we expect the
legal fraternity to be shiningly honest when we know that justice is
poisoned at its source; that the Argentine Law Courts have nothing to
learn and can probably teach even Tammany something new in chicanery?
Let me give but one instance of how justice is administered. A young
Spaniard, one of many employed in a certain undertaking in which I was
interested, had to be discharged for dishonesty. He was an attractive,
gentlemanly young man, with tastes beyond his means,—which is all that
needs to be said of nine-tenths of the swindlers in Buenos Ayres.
Discharged for dishonesty, he was immediately admitted as a clerk in—of
all places in the world—a very prosperous bank! Within six weeks of his
admission to the bank, he contrived to steal some $3500, a portion of
which went to wipe out gambling debts, some $1500 he sent to Spain, and
the remainder, nearly $1000, he lodged in another bank. Arrested, he
was so conscious of the absolute proof of his guilt, that he signed a
statement written by his own lawyer admitting the whole matter, hoping
thus to be clemently dealt with. The case came before a young judge who
took a personal liking to the prisoner, and deliberately made up his mind
to discharge him. This seemed a difficult thing to do in face of the
signed confession.
Among the witnesses called was the gentleman who had discharged him for
dishonesty prior to his being admitted to the bank. This gentleman was
called because the prisoner had given his name as that of his previous
employer. The only question the judge would allow the witness to answer
was “When in your employment did the prisoner strike you as a person who
would be likely to have committed this forgery in the bank?” The witness,
having no wish to force the prisoner into jail, answered “No.” The judge
then asked the prisoner whether, in view of the fact that his alleged
confession was written by a third person and only signed by him, he had
been fully conscious of what that document contained, and whether he
realised precisely the gravity of the admissions therein. The prisoner
seemed somewhat bewildered as to how he should reply, and, not quite
realising that the judge had actually turned himself into advocate for
the defence, seemed on the point of committing himself by accepting full
responsibility, when the judge, silencing him and whispering with the
clerk for a few moments, asked the prisoner not to answer until he had
consulted with his lawyer. The clerk of the court withdrew, with a sign
to the prisoner’s lawyer, who, also leaving the court, returned presently
and whispered a few words to the prisoner.
The forger was then asked by the judge to state exactly how the
confession had been secured. Now, nothing loath, he brazenly asserted
that he had signed it most unwillingly, not realising how it
incriminated him, and so forth. Result: prisoner not only discharged,
who, according to the law of the land could have been put in jail for
three years, but by an order of court, the money which he had stolen from
one bank and lodged in another, and which had meanwhile been arrested by
the court, restored to him!
Is it surprising, in face of an experience such as this, that the
business world teems with minor employees who have been guilty of all
sorts of thefts and dishonest practices, but whom employers have not
prosecuted because conviction is so difficult to secure and legal
expenses are so heavy? A friend of mine who was robbed of $4000 by an
employee, who forged his signature and imperilled his credit in various
directions, spent so much time and money in endeavouring to secure the
conviction of the wrongdoer that he eventually gave up the struggle and
left him to be liberated from the jail where he had lain for some seven
or eight months without a trial.
Here, then, is probably the real reason of this feeling of low business
morality which undoubtedly does prevail in Buenos Ayres—the laxity of the
law and the difficulty of securing justice. A further example and one of
very recent date will serve to show to what extent audacity attains in
the commercial world of Buenos Ayres. A cinematograph company secured
at great cost from a European firm the exclusive right to reproduce an
important film throughout the Argentine, Uruguay and Chili. In due course
the film arrived, and was placed with a firm of photographic experts to
make a number of copies for despatching to the various centres where it
was to be exhibited, and where the exclusive nature of the exhibition was
already being loudly trumpeted in the press. Those entrusted with the
making of the copies did not hesitate to multiply the number by a dozen
or more, and to sell them at high prices to competitive theatres. In this
delightfully simple way, instead of one theatre in one town being able,
as it had announced, to give the exclusive exhibition of the film, some
eight or ten theatres were showing their unauthorised copies of it on the
same evening.
Confronted with such facts, it is hardly a matter for surprise that many
foreign merchants look upon Argentine transactions with suspicious eye,
exacting conditions of payment that are more rigorous than apply in
other quarters of the mercantile world. In the United States, I believe,
and in England certainly, this feeling of insecurity does exist, and
exporters are usually chary of entering into negotiations with unproved
houses in Buenos Ayres. Then, again, it is so difficult to find local
representatives of strict integrity that many large firms who have made
efforts to open up business out there have eventually given up the task,
one well-known maker of a very profitable line of stationery goods, for
which there is a large demand in Buenos Ayres, confessing to me that over
a period of years each arrangement he had made for local representation
had eventually fallen through, owing to the slackness or dishonesty of
his agents.
It is a lamentable fact that the general laxity of business morals has
the effect of developing in clever men their roguish propensities, with
the consequence that I have noticed all too often when the assistance
obtainable in Buenos Ayres has been undeniably competent as regards
intelligence and resource, it has failed in the matter of honesty, and,
inversely, where honesty has been beyond suspicion, these other desirable
qualities have been lacking. And thus we have employers deliberately,
with eyes open, utilising the services of persons whom they distrust and
whom they know to be capable of swindling whenever opportunity serves,
simply because their other abilities are essential to the creation or
extension of the business in hand. The atmosphere of suspicion thus
engendered, and the high standard of incompetency in almost every
branch of service, are two factors that must enter into the serious
consideration of all engaging in the business life of the country.
I could describe at least a dozen individuals with whom, during my eight
months in Buenos Ayres, I came into touch, all persons of the most
obvious capacity and worthy of employment, had that capacity been wisely
directed, but each, on close investigation, so tainted with suspicion
of trickery and trailing behind him an inglorious record, that it was
impossible to utilise his services. One person in particular, with whom
I almost entered into an important literary venture, whose scholarly
attainments were unquestionable, and who, at first, seemed a thorough
gentleman, had, as I subsequently discovered, served three terms in
provincial penitentiaries, and had even been guilty of attempted murder,
which crime he had planned purely and simply for business ends, with a
view to “putting away” a gentleman whom he and another had swindled to
the extent of nearly $5000, and who was proving inconsiderate enough to
invoke the law against the swindlers. This person, whose portrait and
finger marks are duly filed in the Criminal Bureau of Buenos Ayres—where,
by the way, the system of thumb prints originated—had, during his various
encounters with the law, become intimate with a comisario, who, prior to
entering the police service, had himself been a successful criminal, and
continued, not unsuccessfully, his criminal career in his new capacity.
With the aid of this official, the “liter’y gent” was able to defeat
the ends of justice, and for aught I know is still busy under police
protection fleecing new victims in or about Calle Florida.
[Illustration: PREPARING THE PICNIC MEAL—“UN ASADO” IN THE ARGENTINE.
The staple fare of the “Gaucho” is roasted beef, and at picnic parties a
whole animal is often roasted, in the manner above illustrated.]
The laxity of business morality is, of course, a concomitant of the
laxity of general morals, or an effect of the latter, most of the
commercial obliquity that exists having a first cause in the immoral
life of the offenders. Just as it is the fashion of many Argentines, in
addition to maintaining their legitimate wives and families, to possess
openly two or three _queridas_; so among those who are financially ill
equipped to play the pasha, the imitative spirit asserts itself, and even
down to the office boys, it will be found when things go wrong with them
there is “a woman in the case.” This, and gambling, account for probably
two-thirds of the commercial dishonesty, and the remaining third has
its most likely source in a pitiful effort to imitate their betters in
the matter of high living, where the plainest of fare and the humblest
accommodation cost more than genuine luxury does with us. Drinking enters
very slightly into the account, as it would be difficult to find a large
community where less tippling exists than in Buenos Ayres. Whatever there
is of that will be found chiefly among British and German residents, so
that any anti-temperance partisan desirous of proving that a temperate
public is not necessarily a moral one, will find abundant argument ready
to his hand in the life of the Argentine.
Turning from this unpleasant aspect of the business life, which is,
after all, only one phase of it, and must not be allowed to darken
completely our view of the commercial Argentine, there are several other
aspects that must engage our attention, and perhaps to more profit.
British readers especially will rejoice to know that their own country
and its manufacturers occupy a pre-eminent position in the affections
of the Argentine people. While on every hand there is evidence of great
activity on the part of the Germans, who have laid themselves out, and
with fair measure of success, to secure a large slice of the Argentine
import trade, there is not only in the Argentine but throughout all South
America a widespread distrust of the German. He is noted for commercial
methods that are no more praiseworthy than many that prevail locally.
His propensity for showing samples that are much superior to the goods
supplied is notorious, and such progress as he has made may be regarded
as largely the result of a readiness to flatter the native buyer by
speaking the language of the country and dealing with him in terms of
local usage. The Britisher, on the other hand, is guilty of the coldest
indifference to the convenience of the Argentine consumer.
I have, for instance, met more than one traveller for a British house who
has been visiting all the South American capitals and the great centres
of population with samples of goods, and has not been able even to ask
for a glass of beer in Spanish. I recall one gentleman in particular
who, by the sheer merit of the goods he was offering, had done a very
considerable business, and yet was so hopelessly ignorant of the native
tongue that he could not even pronounce the names of the firms who had
bought from him, or the streets in which their offices were situated!
This never happens with a German traveller. He may make the most
atrocious mistakes with the language, but he at least does attempt, and
usually succeeds, to explain himself without the aid of an interpreter,
and the Spanish American accepts any effort on the part of a foreigner to
speak his native tongue as a compliment to himself and strives valiantly
to understand what the foreigner is endeavouring to express.
Then again, British manufacturers show an unruffled disdain for local
conditions in many of the articles they supply. Take, for instance,
the sailors’ hats so much worn by children in England, and even more
in vogue with the _niños_ of the Argentine, where everything that
touches their naval aspirations is highly popular. Thousands of these
are imported from England, and it always struck me as ludicrous to
witness little Argentines going about with “H. M. S. Redoubtable,” “H.
M. S. Dreadnought,” “H. M. S. Benbow,” or some such peculiarly British
name, on their hats. Why on earth do not the British manufacturers
have the common-sense to ascertain the names of the principal vessels
in the Argentine Navy, and use these for the hats they export to the
republic? Evidently the Germans are doing so, as occasionally you will
see “Sarmiento,” “Belgrano,” “San Martín,” in place of the meaningless
British names, and I was told these did not come from England. The
patriotism of the Argentine and of every other South American is such
that he would undoubtedly buy an inferior hat for his boy if it bore the
name of a national warship, and even pay more for it than for a superior
British-made hat with the name of a British man-of-war thereon.
All sorts of sanitary appliances are also imported from Great Britain,
with the instructions for their use painted or engraved in the English
language. Take “geysers” as an example. It often occurred to me in
using bathrooms in various part of the country, where the geyser is an
inevitable fitting, that it was not only bad business, but very dangerous
for these appliances to be in use with English instructions engraved upon
them. The working of a geyser is at best none too simple, and when every
detail of its manipulation is explained on the machine in a language of
which nine-tenths of the users are totally ignorant, the possibility of
putting it out of order or of setting the place on fire, is considerable.
Lavatory basins with “Hot” and “Cold” mean nothing to a native, who can
only think of _caliente_ or of _fria_. The same applies to proprietary
medicines imported from Great Britain and the United States (though
American exporters are waking up to the need of printing instructions in
Spanish), whereas German, French and Italian medicines are invariably
supplied with Spanish directions.
In short, the pre-eminence of British goods, which I noted wherever I
went, not only in the Argentine but throughout all South America, is
in many respects undeserved. That pre-eminence is due to nothing but
honesty and commercial integrity. The British manufacturer is, with few
exceptions, an honest man, selling a good article at a reasonable price;
he keeps his bargains, and fortunately for him _palabra inglésa_ (the
word of an Englishman) is honoured throughout Latin America. But the
German, if he cares, can also make good articles, quite as good as the
English, and many German firms are honourable exceptions to the rule I
have mentioned above, so that once an importer has secured German goods
which are as sound as the English and have been made to suit local
requirements, the English manufacturer has met the most serious kind of
competition.
I attribute a great deal of the indifference shown by British exporters
to lack of proper representation on the spot. So long as the demand for
every class of imported article continues as lively as it is at present,
and the local agent can dispose of the stuff he receives without undue
trouble, he does not worry about making his service more valuable to
his clients by insisting on manufacturers doing their business in terms
of the country. Meanwhile, one finds everywhere the most remarkable
evidence of preference for British goods, British brands of tea,
British preserves, pickles, sauces, sweets, British machinery, clothes,
furniture, are everywhere in prominent use and demand. A good deal of
this preference is also the natural result of British capital having been
so largely used to develop the country,—they say locally “British money
and Italian labour have made the Argentine”—but let me warn the British
manufacturer that things cannot continue as they are indefinitely; this
happy condition of demand exceeding supply will change, and meanwhile
if he is making no serious effort to consider more carefully the needs
of his customers and to render them better service, his astute German
competitor will be “climbing upward in the night”!
While British and American exporters are not always represented as well
as they might be in the South American market, there is yet another point
for their consideration—are they properly staffed at home for dealing
with this particular field? I believe that not a few have clerks in their
foreign departments entirely ignorant of South American Geography, if the
“howlers” they commit are any criterion. The ignorance which prevails
in Great Britain in this connection is notorious, and from what I have
been able to discover, general knowledge in the United States is no more
advanced,—less if anything.
One example coming within my own experience will serve to illustrate what
I mean. Staying at our hotel in Buenos Ayres was one of the managers
of a very large British enterprise, with agents in different parts of
North and South America. One of these was stationed at Punta Arenas, a
considerable town in the far south of Chili, on the Straits of Magellan.
It is the port for a vast country in which sheep farming has of recent
years been making remarkable strides, and where wealth is growing
rapidly. This gentleman chanced to be on his way to England, and made
a break at Buenos Ayres to visit his superior at our hotel. Among the
subjects discussed by them was the curious fact that for three years in
succession the agent had received at Punta Arenas an account from the
head office for goods supplied during the year to a certain Señor P——,
whom he had failed entirely to trace. One evening, as the manager and
the agent were scanning the list of hotel guests, the latter exclaimed
“Why, there’s a Señor P——. I wonder if that might be the man I’m after?”
Further inquiry proved that the gentleman in question was a well-known
merchant from Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, whose business had
brought him on a visit to Buenos Ayres, and that he was none other than
the mysterious Mr. P—— whose accounts were regularly sent to Punta
Arenas for collection. The point of the story is that while Punta Arenas
is distant 1350 nautical miles, or a full four days’ steaming south of
Buenos Ayres, Asunción lies 825 to the north of Buenos Ayres—another
three to four days’ journey by rail and river,—but the export department
of the English firm was so little versed in these matters that it
selected its remotest agent to collect the debt! Punta Arenas and
Asunción were both in South America, and that was enough to establish a
connection! This is but one of many instances I could give to show the
lack of geographical knowledge even among British firms trading with the
country.
Manufacturers in the United States show a much more intelligent
appreciation of the possibilities of Argentine trade than those of Great
Britain, although the latter handle double the volume of business.[1]
Various trade journals published in the Spanish language emanate from
different parts of the United States and are circulated assiduously
among these Latin Republics, though, I fear, so far with inadequate
result. It is the misfortune of the United States that not a few of
its citizens who have gone south in search of “Spanish gold” have not
always been noted for their business rectitude. The result is that while
_palabra inglésa_ has become an accepted phrase in the language of the
country, so has _yanqui bluff_, which may be said to stand for any sort
of crookedness. There are, of course, as I shall have to point out
further on, other reasons of a political nature which tend to make the
South American at once jealous and suspicious of North Americans, and
against these influences it is the duty of all good business men in the
United States wishful to extend the market for their national products,
to fight incessantly, making special efforts to show to the business
man of the southern continent that they are actuated by nothing but the
strongest desire to cultivate a friendly commercial intercourse and an
increasing exchange of commodities between the North and the South. At
the present time, the United States is the chief source of supply for
office furniture, typewriters, cash registers, and also competes with
considerable success in the market for agricultural machinery. But in all
these directions, and especially the last-named, there is enormous room
for expansion.
Here is another aspect of business life that calls for the careful
consideration of all who are ambitious of securing a share of the
profits that await the seller in these lively markets of the south. The
natural prosperity of the country is considerably exaggerated owing
to the ease with which it has been able to borrow from Europe, and
these heavy borrowings have led to general extravagance, raising the
sense of prosperity beyond what is justified by intrinsic values. I
do not suggest for one moment that borrowing has vastly exceeded the
potentialities of the country, but I do assert that it has anticipated
these potentialities, and to that extent discounted future development.
The possibilities of the Argentine are colossal, and its power of
recuperation after the severest trials, such as ruined harvests or
destruction of cattle and sheep through drought, amazing. In this
connection, it is unnecessary to say more than that in one single summer
the country has suffered the loss of several million sheep owing to a
prolonged drought, without the community as a whole being conscious of
any financial strain from so great a destruction of capital. The British
makers of sheep-dip, however, would probably suffer a decrease of some
thousands of pounds in their exports to the Argentine that year, and
British wool-buyers who swarm over to the River Plate each year, would
have to pay a great deal more for their purchases, owing to the shortage
of supply.
[Illustration: FIELDS OF MAIZE.
It is said the profits of a single harvest have repaid the cost of the
land.]
Still, the fact remains that, due largely to the popular conception of
the Argentine as the new Eldorado for European manufacturers, enormous
sums of money are annually being wasted by ill-advised efforts to secure
business for which competition has suddenly become keen. Now, we have to
remember that with a borrowing people an element of thriftlessness is
inevitable, and that there is a necessarily high percentage of wastage
in the heavy loans which the country has secured from Europe. Hence that
general sense of prosperity and abundance which on closer examination is
often found to be more apparent than real. Right through the Argentine
this spirit of borrowing prevails. They are a nation of borrowers, and
in all ranks of society—by which is meant the various divisions graded
according to the supposed dimensions of their banking accounts or their
credit—the one notion of doing business is by drawing on the Bank of
the Future. The countless thousands of land-sales, which have brought
unequalled prosperity to one class of the community and riches to the
leading newspapers (daily crammed with advertisements of these auctions)
have been and still are conducted on the principle of _mensualidades_, or
monthly payments. The hire purchase system is universal. Mortgage banks
abound and flourish on interest rates that range anywhere from 8 per
cent. to 14 per cent., many such banks offering depositors 7 per cent.
per annum for their money, which they lend out at 10 per cent. or 12 per
cent. to help landowners in the development of their properties. You will
be told by local residents that this high rate of interest is perfectly
compatible with the capabilities of the country, and that the Englishman,
with his time-honoured notions of 4½ per cent. on land mortgage, is a
hopeless back number in the Argentine. There may be some truth in this,
but it is difficult to get away from the feeling that there is the
hectic flush of unhealthiness in any system that demands such high rates
for its financial accommodation.
As one could fill a whole book discussing nothing else than the aspects
of the various branches of commercial enterprise, all so different in
their essentials from most of our home conditions, I am making no attempt
to enter into detailed consideration of the subject, but to illustrate
broadly the danger I have hinted at, arising from the almost uncanny
feeling of prosperity which the peculiar conditions of the country have
induced.
I may touch briefly on the motor-car business. Although, as I have
already stated, there are few countries in the world less attractive from
the point of view of motoring than the Argentine, where roads such as
we know them in Europe, or even in North America, simply do not exist;
and no large city so ill-adapted for motoring as Buenos Ayres, where the
principal streets are extremely narrow and badly kept, while those of
the suburbs are almost entirely unpaved; the popularity of the motor-car
as an article of luxury and ostentation is supreme. The importation of
expensive cars was proceeding in the most reckless manner during my
stay there in 1912, with the result that I was informed by one of the
leading automobile dealers whom I met in Chili some six months after
leaving the River Plate, and who had come over to spy out the Transandine
possibilities, that it was estimated by the various houses dealing in
cars at the end of the 1913 season that there were no fewer than twelve
hundred unsold cars in the store-rooms of the numerous agencies in
Buenos Ayres. In the previous season, I think the highest number I saw on
a motor-car was in the 4000’s. No wonder there was general talk of “the
Motor Crisis” in 1913!
In my walks abroad during 1912, it was an endless source of wonder to
me to contemplate the folly of the European companies in their mad
scramble for this business. I saw dozens of establishments being opened
at enormous cost, stocked with expensive cars and served by retinues
of gorgeous youths who were to sell these to the fabulously wealthy
Argentines. In eight months’ time, I saw more than one of those splendid
establishments shut up, and doubtless since then many another has pulled
down its shutters (the use of metal shutters which pull down from above
is universal). Of one in particular I secured some inside information.
It was a German concern, and it took a magnificent _exposicíon_ in a
fashionable quarter, paying a rent of $4,000 per month. In the first
nine months, it had sold some thirty-five cars, the total value of which
did not greatly exceed the rent of the show-room. In addition to the
show-room, the concern in question required a large warehouse and repair
shop in another part of the city, so that the man of business will be
able to gather how such an enterprise was likely to end. Moreover, most
of those cars were sold at so much “down,” and the remainder in ten
monthly instalments. I suppose it is a safe assumption that more money
has been lost in the motor-car business in Buenos Ayres than is likely to
be made in it for some time to come.
One particularly astute foreigner with a large stock of unsold cars
devised a most admirable selling scheme. He made a bargain with a number
of willing scoundrels that each should go to a certain organisation which
provided any conceivable article to its customers on the instalment
system, exacting from the customer an increased price, and from the
seller of the article a substantial discount. These accomplices of the
motor agent, each through this medium of the purchasing agency, bought
one of his motor cars, tendering the initial payment, the money for which
had been supplied by him, and the buying agency in due course furnished
the car, paying the vender his trade price for it. Each car sold in this
manner immediately came back into the possession of the vender, and
naturally the accommodating financiers soon discovered no second payments
were forthcoming. I understand this enterprising motor-dealer had thus
netted quite a respectable sum on his surplus stock before his good work
was interrupted by an unwillingness on the part of the purchasing agency
to continue!
All this will serve to suggest the general looseness of business methods
and the accompanying wastage that is going on, which can be attributed
to no other cause than the ease with which the country has been able
to borrow, and the avidity with which foreign manufacturers have taken
the bait by rushing into the market without due consideration of its
risks and the characteristics of the people with whom business has to
be done. In no wise do I wish to belittle the commercial possibilities
of the country, for I am a firm and convinced believer that South
America generally is “the Coming Continent,” and that Buenos Ayres is
probably the most attractive of the newer business centres of the world
to-day, with limitless opportunities for sound commercial expansion
to European and North American manufacturers, but by reason of its
very attractiveness, the freedom with which money circulates, and the
readiness with which the people burden themselves with responsibilities,
the desideratum in all business enterprise is not boldness, but caution.
One of the most experienced native business men assured me that in land
speculation, which is even a more popular form of gambling than the
public lottery—servants and street porters actually owning “lots” they
have never seen, and never will see, and for which they are paying every
month,—the venders never hesitate to make the number of instalments run
into several years, in order to make the individual instalment as low
as possible, because the purchaser, incapable of a “long view,” in no
case realises the burden he is accepting, and merely looks at the amount
he has to pay monthly. The sum total of payments is seldom mentioned,
the accepted formula being a small initial payment and anything from
twenty-four to sixty mensualidades, also of comparatively small amounts.
The vast majority of the buyers never complete their purchases,
surrendering, after a year or two, what they have paid, together with the
land, to the seller, who will probably resell it to another purchaser,
who will also make default, and in this way the land speculator grows
rich.
Every day the newspapers contain particulars of some fresh scheme for
relieving the public of their money; sharks abound, and their variety
is endless. From the point of view of the foreign manufacturer, one
of the most pernicious forms of unfair trading is that practised in
connection with the registration of trade marks. The law grants the sole
title in a trade mark to the first person who registers it, and exacts
from him no evidence whatsoever that he is registering that which is his
own property. The outcome of this delightful state of affairs is that a
fraternity of longsighted speculators has grown up in Buenos Ayres, whose
business is to keep in close touch with the commercial worlds of Europe
and North America, and the moment a manufacturer places a new article on
these markets and registers his trade mark, one of these gentry hastens
to secure the proprietorship of that trade mark for the Argentine,
registering it as his own. His next movement—which may be delayed for
a year or so—is to write to the foreign manufacturer and to state that
he shall be very pleased to act as agent for the article in question,
which he thinks he can sell to advantage, and indeed so confident is he
of being able to handle it successfully that he has taken the trouble to
register the trade mark. The manufacturer, if he wishes to introduce the
article in South America, must then either appoint this nimble gentleman
his agent or pay him an extortionate price for the right to sell his own
article under its original name.
One example of how this works will suffice. The Oliver typewriter is sold
in the Argentine by its duly accredited agent as the “Revilo,” because
an enterprising citizen had forestalled the owners by registering the
name “Oliver” as applied to typewriters, and the company, neither caring
to appoint him its agent nor to pay for the privilege of selling their
typewriter there, adopted the plan of labelling their machines for sale
in the Argentine with the name spelt backward! Some famous brands of
Scotch whisky cannot be sold in the Argentine, as a Jewish gentleman is
in possession of their trade marks, which he registered in anticipation,
and thus the whisky drinker will discover all sorts of unfamiliar
brands specially prepared for export, while it is possible that the
purloiner of the familiar trade mark may arrange to bottle any sort of
vile rubbish under the well-known label. This is a state of things, of
course, that can easily be met by the foreign manufacturer, whenever he
is introducing any new article of consumption, taking care to have it
formally registered in the Argentine at the same time that it is placed
on the home market, so that if in the future he should wish to export it,
he will be able freely to do so.
Owing to the accessibility of legislators to influence and bribery,
all sorts of abuses arise. In Montevideo, for instance, a typical case
came under my personal knowledge. A large British manufacturing house,
which for many years had been supplying an article of wide consumption
throughout South America and in Uruguay particularly, suddenly
discovered that an excessive import tariff had been placed upon it. A
large consignment of the article in question arrived in the harbour of
Montevideo two or three days after the passing of the Act, and a battle
royal ensued between the representative of the British company and the
Customs officials, who endeavoured to exact the new tariff, but who were
eventually defeated on the ground that the tariff did not date from the
passing of the Act, but from the signing of the same by the President,
which, fortunately, had not taken place until two or three days after
the arrival of the cargo. This increased tariff had been imposed solely
on the initiative of an ambitious Uruguayan, who had determined to
manufacture a competitive article locally and got his friends in the
_cámara_ to assist him by choking off the foreign competitor. The result
was that the British firm had immediately to buy land and build a factory
in Montevideo in order to get “inside the tariff,” which they did before
the bungling native was able to work out his own plans, and so completely
outwitted him. The probability is that the tariff will again be taken
off, and the British company will be able to make the Uruguayan consumer
pay for the inconvenience and expense which the unsuccessful trickery of
their compatriot incurred.
[Illustration: BAGS OF WHEAT AWAITING SHIPMENT AT A RAILWAY STATION.]
[Illustration: THREE HUGE PILES OF “JERKED BEEF” OUTSIDE A “SALADERO,” OR
CURING FACTORY.]
Before turning from this subject, I must add a final word about the
extraordinary incompetency of native labour, already mentioned, which
conditions to so large an extent the business life, not only of the
Argentine, but of all South America. Inefficiency is the keynote of the
Spaniard as a worker. A complete indifference to the pressure of time is
another of his characteristics, and both of these we find more or less
eminent in the South American. The Argentine himself is steadily escaping
from the influence of his Spanish original, and will eventually become
a more wide-awake, competent, and altogether a more intelligent worker.
But even so, he has still to rid himself of innumerable faults in order
to come into line with what modern industrial conditions exact from
the worker in France, Germany, and Italy, in Great Britain and in North
America. The tradesman will dismiss you with the blandest assurances of
completing the work he has in hand for you “to-morrow,” and probably
you will discover a week later he has not yet begun it. He doesn’t care
a hang whether you are pleased or not. The professional man will make
no attempt whatever to keep an engagement within half an hour of the
appointed time, and the employee does not believe that the interests of
the employer and his own can ever possibly be identical.
There is but one way to deal with the Spanish-American worker, and that
is never to encourage him, never to express your approval of his work,
never for one moment to let him feel you value his services, and never
voluntarily to advance his wages! The master who finds his native helper
really useful and shows his appreciation by doing any of these things
will speedily have to meet a demand for an impossible increase of wages,
or to suffer the annoyance of seeing his employee “slacking” at every
opportunity and assuming an attitude of disregard for his interests.
The man reasons that if his master thinks so well of him as to advance
his wages without a request, or to express his satisfaction with his
services, he has become so invaluable to that master that he can presume
on him by taking liberties which a less useful worker would not expect to
be allowed. Presently, the only thing his master can do is to discharge
the man whom he has thoughtlessly encouraged, and it may be that the
latter will retaliate by waiting at the door and either shooting or
stabbing the misguided employer.
Especially in handling the _peones_ is it necessary to maintain the
severest, almost the most brutal conditions of discipline. Among my
acquaintances in the Argentine is a wiry little Englishman, whose
reputation as a disciplinarian is so widely known that his services are
much in request to “clean up” estancias where unsuccessful managers
have allowed slackness to prevail among the hands, or “arms,” rather:
agricultural labourers being collectively _brazos_ or _braceros_, though
the latter term is also used in the singular. He looks the last man in
the world for the job, having more the appearance of a natty, little
London lawyer. But he was wont to ride among the rough Italian and
Gallego labourers, always complaining about the inefficiency of their
work, and if one ever muttered a protest, he calmly smashed him to the
ground with a well-directed blow on the forehead from the butt of his
loaded riding whip. On various occasions he has even gone so far as
to have two peones seize one of their number who had retorted to some
complaint, carry him to a barn and strip off his shirt, and after having
him tied to a post, personally apply a substantial number of lashes to
his back. It might be thought that this was just the type of man to
receive a shot some night, or a stab in the back, but that is not the way
of things in South America. He has gone about his business for nearly
thirty years and has won the respect of the creatures he has knocked down
and flogged, as well as that of all the others who did not wish to feel
the weight of his strong hand. No, the type of employer more likely to
be assassinated is he who has treated his employees with ill-directed
kindness.
I met a gentleman, the manager of an estancia, at our hotel in the
middle of one week leaving for his home and heard the following Sunday
that he had been shot dead by a labourer on the Saturday, because he
would not re-employ the man whom the _mayordomo_ had discharged during
the manager’s absence. The fellow had no grudge against the man who
discharged him, who was probably in the habit of making his arm felt
among the workers, but the manager, who had shown a kindly interest in
the peones and braceros, and could, had he wished, re-engage this one,
was the natural object of his vengeance. Another gentleman with whom I
came into occasional relationship was shot dead one evening by one of his
workers because he would not advance him a day’s money, declaring that he
already had received sufficient for the week. Wages are paid nominally by
the month, but improvidence is so common among the workers that seldom
has a man, no matter his status, to draw his full pay at the end of the
month, continual advances having been asked for week by week.
Therefore any North American or European house that purposes branching
out in the Argentine is faced with difficulties that do not exist, at
least to the same extent, in almost any other great centre of trade, and
some allowance must be made to discount these in money values from the
cost of doing business there.
Blackmail and “graft” entering so largely into business and politics, it
would be surprising were it entirely absent from the Press. In proportion
to its population, Buenos Ayres probably supports more periodicals
than any other city in the world. There are about fifteen morning and
evening journals devoted to Argentine interests, “national” newspapers;
two dailies which cater for the Spanish community in distinction
from the native Argentine; three or four Italian morning and evening
papers; two English dailies (one of which has a wide circulation and is
extremely profitable to its proprietors); two French dailies; two or
three flourishing German dailies; one Turkish daily (containing four
pages about the size of a New York evening paper, printed in Arabic
characters), and weekly, semi-weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly publications
almost innumerable, catering for all manner of interests and representing
a veritable babel of tongues—Yiddish, Scandinavian, Syriac, Russian,
Greek, Catalan, Basque, to mention a few at random. A mere glance at
a list of these journals would be sufficient to indicate, even to the
uninitiated, that they cannot all be getting an honest living. Those
that are conducted on strict business principles are relatively few; the
blackmailer is busy on the others. His methods are simple, naïve to a
degree. The advertising manager calls upon you and states that he has
seen your advertisement in _La Prensa_, _La Nacion_, _La Razon_, _La
Argentina_, or _El Diario_, all of which are reputable and important
journals, and that he would like you to put it into his paper, and if you
do not think of doing that, his editor is contemplating publishing an
article attacking you, and it would be a pity to let that appear. They
are foolish indeed who allow such threats to induce them to use space in
any of the numberless rags that issue from obscure printing offices,
as the circulation of these sheets is so small, their influence so
contemptible, that it would scarcely matter whether they published a full
page denouncement of a Calle Florida tradesman as a thief and a swindler
and offered their paper for sale at his door, so little attention do the
general public pay to them.
On the other hand, there is an abundance of good journalism, and neither
New York nor London can produce more profitable mediums of commercial
publicity than several of the daily papers already named, or such
weeklies as _Caras y Caretas_, _Fray Mocho_, and _P. B. T._ Relatively,
the advertising rates in all these journals are higher than in American
or British publications of the same circulation, but the ready response
to the advertisements in them not only compensates for the difference
in cost, but makes them work out cheaper mediums of publicity than the
average in North America or Great Britain.
From every point of view, the Argentine offers to the man of business
almost unequalled opportunities, but, as I have endeavoured to illustrate
in this chapter, it has the defects of its merits, and he who imagines
it a veritable gold mine where there is no more to do than pick up the
nuggets and bring them home, is the most deluded of optimists. It will
give rich return for industry, for intelligence, and for honest merit,
but while the business man in search of new fields of enterprise may
reasonably expect to do relatively better in the wonderful Argentine than
in most other markets of the world, what I have written may show that
business life in Buenos Ayres is not entirely a bed of roses.