“THE BRITISH COLONY” AND ITS WAYS
All the different nationalities represented in the population of the
Argentine are known as “colonies,” excepting the Spaniards and Italians,
who are at once so numerous and so involved in the life of the country
that it is scarcely possible to think of them merely as colonial groups.
The Republic, with a total population of seven and a half-millions,
contains vast numbers of Italians and Spaniards, but reliable returns as
to the various nationalities included in the population are difficult to
come by, if not impossible to secure. It is stated that there are upwards
of 800,000 Spaniards in the country, while the Basques, both French and
Spanish, are said to exceed a quarter of a million; the Germans number
nearly 50,000, the total of German speaking persons, which includes
Germans, Austrians, and Swiss, being upwards of 120,000. The British
residents throughout the Republic probably do not total 40,000, but
that is thought a fair estimate. As for Italians, their name is legion.
In Buenos Ayres alone there are some 350,000 of them. But all figures
must be regarded as approximate only, as the re-emigration movement is
considerable. For example: in the year 1911 the total immigration into
the Republic was 225,772, but the emigration from it amounted to 120,709,
leaving an immigration balance of 105,063. Race statistics are easily
obtained as to the incoming population, but of the settled residents and
those who leave the country, there is a good deal that is speculative in
all estimates, official and otherwise.
The Spaniards and Italians are split up into many subsections, such as
the Basques, Asturians, Andalusians, Neapolitans, Tuscans, Lombards,
Sicilians, and so forth. It would thus be correct to talk of “the
Asturian colony,” but scarcely so of “the Spanish colony”; of the
Neapolitan colony, but not of the Italian.
To a remarkable degree do these communities preserve their racial
distinctions, as I have already explained, this applying more
particularly to the cosmopolitan centres of population, such as Buenos
Ayres, Rosario, La Plata, and Mendoza. In the smaller country towns,
where the nationalities thin out, there are not the same inducements to
maintain distinctions of race; thus, paradoxical though it may seem, the
process of “Argentinising” the Gringo proceeds apace more rapidly in the
Camp than in the larger towns, or even in Buenos Ayres, which might be
thought the hottest part of the “melting pot.”
Naturally, the capital contains the major portion of the British colony,
yet, not even the ubiquitous Italian, though always overwhelming
the British in sheer numbers, finds his way to remoter parts, for
everywhere throughout the vast territory of the Republic the British have
penetrated, either as lonely overseers or “construction engineers,” in
little groups as prosperous estancieros, or managers of divers concerns.
In Rosario there is a very considerable colony of them, in Bahía Blanca,
in Junin, Mendoza, Tucumán—wherever there are banks to be managed,
railways to be maintained, machinery to be sold, there you will find the
enterprising sons of Albion busy, and usually prosperous; though it must
be confessed that the figure I have just used may not quite apply, as the
most familiar names borne by these self-exiles from Britain are Scots and
Irish.
In many respects, the Irish Argentine was one of my most interesting
studies. As a journalist, it was something of a revelation to find two
comparatively prosperous weekly newspapers, the _Southern Cross_ and the
_Hiberno-Argentine Review_, both printed in English and very much alive,
dedicated exclusively to the interests of the Irish Catholic families
of the country. The Irishman is well-known for the part he has played
in the development of South America. In that wonderful statesman and
governor, Ambrosio O’Higgins, and his no less brilliant son Bernardo,
the liberator and first President of Chili, did not Ould Ireland give to
South America two of the noblest men of action whose lives illumine its
history? In the Argentine also, the Hibernian has played no mean rôle in
the development of the young nation. His influence in her counsels to-day
is considerable. Prepared as one may be by previous reading to discover
him prominent in its life, it is none the less strange to meet eminent
men of business, in every fibre of their being fervid Argentines,—using
the Argentine tongue with all the nuances of the native,—who speak our
own language with the most pronounced Irish brogue.
Comparatively few of these Irish Argentines, moreover, have ever crossed
the seas to the green isle of their ancestors. Almost without exception
they are bitterly anti-English in sentiment. Originally sprung from the
lower class Irish peasantry, to whom the miserable conditions of emigrant
life in the Argentine, a generation or two back, were far less forbidding
than to the average British emigrant, the dress-suit and silk-stockinged
stage of luxury attained by the many who have gathered a bit of fortune
from the generous soil, is to them a satisfaction that might not appeal
so strongly to the classes which England and Scotland are pouring into
Canada at the present time. His religion also fitting in with that of the
country is another factor that has helped to make the Irishman at home in
the Argentine.
Under the British Treaty with the Argentine, the children born in the
country of British parents occupy a somewhat curious position as regards
nationality. While their parents remain British subjects, unless—and
this rarely indeed—they deliberately renounce their birthright to become
nationalised Argentines, children born in the country are reckoned as
Argentines and amenable to the laws of the Republic so long as they
continue to live therein, but they become British subjects on entering
British territory. Thus, the native son of British parents must conform
to the law of military service, while the native-born daughter ranks with
all other Argentine women in her disabilities as to the personal control
of her property in the event of her marrying in that country. Yet, on
going to London, that son and daughter cease, for the time being, to be
Argentine subjects, so far as British law is concerned, and are there
accepted as native-born Britishers.
Whether this curious international arrangement exists in connection
with any other European countries, I know not; but suspect it does not,
else the heroic efforts of many foreign women residents, and especially
the French, to maintain the nationality of their children, would not be
necessary. Seldom does a steamer leave Buenos Ayres for Europe without
carrying several lonely women who have left their husbands, perhaps in
some remote corner of the Pampa, in order that the child to be born may
see the light under the flag of its parents’ country. M. Huret mentions
the case of a French lady who, in addition to a long and toilsome
journey from the interior, undertook the trip to Europe and back on two
occasions within three years thus to preserve the French nationality of
her children. With English mothers the chief, indeed the only reason for
following this course is to save any son of theirs from the burden of
military service. And many a poor lady who has made the trip has been
disappointed to be told the child was a girl!
Argentine statesmen are most insistent on the maintenance of the
conditions that go with Argentine citizenship, and to such a point
that the famous Bartolomé Mitre, one of the greatest men the nation
has produced, declared that, rather than withdraw the condition, that
he who becomes a citizen of the Republic must renounce his allegiance
to his native land, he would “set fire to his country from all sides.”
Officialism is alert and open-eyed in its watch and ward over the
native-born sons of foreigners who seek to evade their military
obligations. So far as I could gather, there was but little disposition
to do so on the part of most of the young citizens sprung from Gringo
parents; rather are they apt to look down upon the country of their
fathers, and to swell with pride at being privileged to serve the
Argentine.
Exceptions to this rule will most usually be found among the sons of
resident Britishers, though many of them, and especially the Irish,
willingly do their duty by the Republic. I remember overhearing the
mother of one of these young Irish _porteños_ scolding him because he
insisted on speaking Spanish, even among his own people, where English
(with a thick brogue) was the language of the family circle. He had
served his term in the Republican army, and gloried in reciting its
illustrious achievements, before which the efforts of the poor blunderers
who muddled through with such footling officers as Napoleon and
Wellington paled into insignificance. What were the British Grenadiers
to the _Granaderos de San Martín_? What indeed! But the Englishmen and
Scotsmen who, by accident of birth, rank as Argentine citizens, and
have done their military service, are comparatively few in proportion
to the whole. I have met native-born Argentines not a few who were far
less enamoured of the country and its ways, and more sanely appreciative
of old England than many British residents who had better reason to
entertain these sentiments.
A certain lofty contempt for the Englishman at home is to be noted in
the attitude of the “British Colony” to things British. “I have no use
for the untravelled Englishman,” said an Argentine-born Englishman to
me. This gentleman’s parents had evidently been so essentially English
that their son, now a man of about fifty, had grown up and attained to
prosperity without being able to speak more than “Gringo Spanish.” He
had no use for the untravelled Englishman, and yet I shall venture to
say that many a Lancashire or Yorkshire man who has travelled no farther
than London will have as broad an outlook as the English porteño who has
never been outside of the Argentine. This very gentleman, one of the most
charming and agreeable of the British residents with whom I came into
touch, had himself visited England for the first time two years before I
met him, and confessed that the old land, with its unlimited facilities
for the larger enjoyment of social life, made a deep impression on him,
even to the point of awakening the desire to go “home” and avail himself
of his British birthright for the rest of his days.
[Illustration: AN “ESTANCIA” HOMESTEAD OF THE OLD CLAY-BUILT TYPE.]
Judge ye, therefore, to what extent he was entitled to sneer at the
untravelled Englishman! So far as enlarging one’s horizon or enriching
the mind is concerned, a month on the Continent of Europe, amid historic
scenes and in touch with the grand, great things of the past, will do
more than many years of Buenos Ayres. Thus I was at first inclined to
stiffen against my porteño friend and resent his suggestion, but I had
misunderstood him, and we were really in entire harmony, he and I. His
point was that the Englishman who arrives in Buenos Ayres direct from
England, and has never before travelled throughout his own country or
even troubled about that Continental tour is apt to prove a social bore
to his fellow-countrymen in Buenos Ayres. I concur most heartily, for
this is the very type of Englishman who discusses in the loudest voice
and with the most unreasoning bigotry the incomparable advantages of
the Argentine over the benighted little island he has left. Nor must it
be supposed that the seven thousand miles from the Thames to the River
Plate do anything appreciably to reduce the untravelled state of this
Englishman. There is not a great deal to see, and what there is slips
past the average voyager without notice, so that he reaches his journey’s
end in the same splendid state of untravelled ignorance that he left his
native town in England.
In any consideration of the British colony, we ought to have established
in our minds what exactly are its constituents. A very large number of
its members are associated with the management of the railways. Even
readers who are only indifferently informed on South American subjects
are probably aware that the British are the great railway makers of the
world, and that the thousands of miles of lines which interlace the
far-flung towns of the Argentine are monuments of British enterprise,
while some £150,000,000 of good English money has gone to their making.
In this alone the Britishers have proved themselves the greatest
benefactors of the country, although it has not been entirely a work of
philanthropy. The railways, then, being chiefly British concerns, show a
natural preference for British employees, and thousands of young Britons
are serving on them to-day in all sorts of capacities, but chiefly as
clerks, accountants, draughtsmen, engineers, and department managers.
Time was when the young railway employee in England who secured a post in
the Argentine went direct from a thistly pasturage to a field of clover;
was able to keep his horse and ruffle it with the best. That was before
the standardising of the currency, when a paper peso would occasionally
be as good as gold, and usually a great deal better than it has been
since the establishment of the _caja de conversión_. To-day they speak of
those times as of a Golden Age that has vanished, and now the lot of the
minor railway employee is by no means an enviable one. It is true that he
will probably receive a salary twice or two and a half times greater than
he got at home, but, as I have already made clear, the net result of such
a salary will be that financially his Argentine condition, if not worse
than his British, will be but little better. He will handle more money,
and he will get a great deal less for what he spends. Meanwhile, he has
signed his two or three years’ agreement, and must struggle on, however
inadequately he is financed for the fight. Falling readily into the ways
of his better situated countrymen, he endeavours to vie with them, and
in the process is lucky indeed if he avoids running into debt. From this
class, to which naturally there are many exceptions among the higher
placed officials—many of whom are men of outstanding ability, handsomely
paid and more liberally treated than they would be in similar positions
in Great Britain or North America—we have not the best of material for
the building of the British colony.
The British banks and financial agencies, so numerous throughout the
Republic, are very largely staffed from home, though there is also a
large native element in every office, as it is not to be supposed that
the operations of these banks are confined to a British clientéle. Far
from that; I should imagine that the large majority of depositors with
such as the London and River Plate Bank were foreigners. Certainly,
to judge by my occasional visits to that busiest of banks, there were
always fewer Britishers among those waiting on the outside of the
counters than there were English-speaking accountants and cashiers on
the inside. In addition to the heads of departments who were, I think,
without exception, Britishers, the staff contained many English-speaking
porteños, but working away at the books, and not in touch with the
public, one could note many essentially British faces. This is typical
of most of these banks operating in South America, some perhaps
employing more of their fellow countrymen than others. If anything, the
Anglo-South-American Bank seemed to me to find employment for even more
Englishmen than the average in its various branches in the Argentine and
along the Pacific Coast.
The young men drafted out from England for employment in these banks
are, I imagine, of a somewhat better social status and also better
paid than the ruck of the railways employees. In contrast with the
conditions of service and remuneration at home, the bank clerk in the
Argentine certainly does seem to better his position somewhat, or, more
correctly, he attains advancement earlier than he would at home. He is,
on the other hand, doomed to a long and probably permanent exile, as
there seems little disposition on the part of the home offices to find
openings in London for any of their employees once they have become
accustomed to the work and life of South America. This is probably one
of the reasons why the British banking community throughout the country
appears to be very settled in its character, the constant shifting, so
unsatisfactory a feature of the clerical staffs of the railways, not
being a characteristic of the financial fraternity. Then, the business
of the banker, bringing him into direct touch with the public, imposes
upon all those anxious to progress therein, the necessity of acquiring
the language of the country, whereas the railway clerk, beyond a string
of technical words used in his bookkeeping, may never find any need
for it, and rarely indeed does an Englishman (and here I must bracket
the American with him) make any attempt to learn the language unless
under pressure of circumstances. This is another of the reasons for the
superiority of the banking clerk over the railway clerk, as it will be
found that the intelligent Englishman who has acquired a good command
of the language, with whatever object in view, always holds a position
superior to his fellow countryman who has not done so, or he is at least
likely to outstrip him in the long run.
A third element in the making of the British colony are the “Cable
boys.” The various cable companies are all served by very young men, who
among Britishers abroad probably bear away the bell for their unlimited
power of “swanking.” It is altogether delightful to pass an hour or two
in the company of some of these breezy youths. They leave you with the
impression that the whole modern civilisation has been moulded by men
of their kidney. They talk about their work with a zest that no mere
banker, engineer, journalist, or architect could possibly impart to his
humbler calling. They call it “The Service,” and to hear a group of them
discussing the personalities of their great men in charge of branch
offices at fabulous salaries of £5 to £6 a week, is most refreshing to
the wearied man of affairs.
Often have I watched and frequently had intercourse with these glorious
youths, of whose romantic existence I had only the haziest notions until
I went a-travelling in South America, and they always contrived to make
me feel something of a worm for not having dedicated such abilities as I
possess to “The Service.” Yet there is a pathetic side to them and their
work. The Cable Service and Wireless Telegraphy are two potent snares
for the youth of our time. It really requires a very modest supply of
grey matter in the cranium to discharge the duties of either, and a young
man of twenty is as good a cable operator as he will be at forty, and
probably better than he will be at fifty. Few are they who can hope to
rise to the more responsible managerial positions. The bulk of them grow
up into disillusioned, underpaid, and aimless men. It is a service for
youths, in which they quickly attain proficiency, and what, for youth, is
a substantial wage; but “soon ripe, soon rot.” So that whenever I came
in touch with those swaggering “boys,” I used to see hovering behind
them shadowy figures with grey, sad faces, and did not grudge them their
swanking days.
Yet another of the constituents of the “colony” is furnished from the
ranks of the commission agents and local representatives of our exporting
firms. Many of the large manufacturing firms maintain their own offices
and staffs under the management of able assistants who have been trained
at home, while many more are content to be represented on a commission
basis by agents, who are their own masters and handle the business of
several firms whose interests do not clash. Among these will be found not
a few of the most prosperous members of the British community, men of
self-reliance, initiative, individuality. There are also to be considered
in this connection, though the bond that binds them to the British colony
is ever loosening, fellow countrymen who have permanently established
themselves as local tradesmen, conducting every variety of business,
such as chemist, draper, grocer, jeweller, bootseller, furniture dealer,
bookseller, and so forth. In all parts of Buenos Ayres, and in a lesser
degree in the larger towns of the country, the wanderer will note
familiar British names over shop windows, often with the Christian name
in Spanish, _Juan_ for John, _Diego_ for James, and so on. It is a fair
assumption that when the English tradesman has taken to use the Spanish
form, he intends to strike his roots deep into the new soil. His children
will become more Argentine than British, and theirs British not at all.
But perhaps the most important, and I suspect the most substantial of the
British community who have made their homes in this Land of Fortune are
those of the estanciero class. It is true that the wealthiest of them
cannot be compared on a mere money basis with the wealthier natives, who
have seen their landed properties increase some hundred times in value
in the last forty years, whereas most English estancieros had to buy
their holdings after the upward movement began. Many of them carry on
farming on what, compared with the average conditions in their native
land, is a baronial scale, and as a rule they seem to be pleased with
their lot and happy in the country of their adoption. They are frequent
visitors to Buenos Ayres, and flock there, particularly at the time of
the Agricultural Show, when their womenfolk vie with each other in the
display of their latest hats and dresses. Included among the agricultural
class are many highly paid managers, usually Englishmen of good education
and organising ability, who conduct the intricate affairs of large
estancias either for private owners or for public companies.
It is impossible, of course, to give in complete detail an analysis of
the British colony, and all that I have attempted has been to suggest
very roughly the classes that go to its composition. It will be seen
that it is first and last a purely commercial community. In no sense is
it a replica of society as one knows it in England. Every member of it
is there to make money, and by the extent to which he is succeeding does
he stand in the estimation of the community. It could not be otherwise.
It is true there are British schools with British instructors, British
churches—a pro-Cathedral among them—with clergymen, Nonconformist
pastors, and Irish priests, societies for literary discussion, British
clubs, charities, hospitals, missions to seamen, Salvation Army workers,
and amateur theatrical societies; but the fact remains that it is in the
very fibre of its being a business community, where commercial standing
takes precedence of most other considerations.
At the same time, I found ample evidence in the British colony of a
desire to approximate more nearly to the social observations of the
homeland, to look more closely at the credentials of newcomers before
taking them to its bosom. In the early days, Buenos Ayres was one of the
many dumping places for wastrels, and the colonial freedom which accepted
everybody at his face value produced an inevitable mixture of sorts, so
that not rarely did Britishers of dubious antecedents manage to secure
a wife among the daughters of some prosperous British resident. It is
well-known that the daughters of these families even still have great
difficulty in finding suitable husbands of their own class, and during
our stay I confess I saw sufficient of the British community to have
made me extremely careful, had I intended to settle in the town, in the
choice of my friends. There is in all this nothing that reflects upon
the worthier elements of the community; it is the inevitable outcome of
peculiar conditions, and rather than finding much to censure, one may
discover a great deal to commend in the life of these exiles. That it is
provincial to a degree is scarcely surprising, and that it is productive
of much genuine friendship, sympathy, mutual helpfulness, is due to the
generous British nature on which it is based.
Its class distinctions are being emphasised, and not before time. At
first blush one might be repelled by what seemed the pettiness of its
interests, the little corroding jealousies, its snobbishness, but the
last mentioned is at bottom a praiseworthy effort to raise the social
level beyond that obtaining with the indiscriminate mixing of good and
bad which characterised the earlier life of the community. The pettiness
is inescapable. A country town in England would probably provide no more
gossip and scandal than any British community several times its size in a
foreign land.
A nursery governess comes out to Buenos Ayres and stays at the
by-no-means-luxurious headquarters of the Y.W.C.A. until she finds a
job. She will probably be back there frequently in the periods between
her various posts, as she will have many changes before she is “suited.”
Eventually she will meet some decent, lonely Englishman, managing
an estancia a day or two’s journey away in the Camp. They will get
married, and make a brave show of it at the Y.W.C.A., and next day the
_Standard_ will publish a column describing the great event, with the
list of presents spaced out in single lines. Need one be surprised if
the nursery governess suddenly finds herself something of a snob? She
will immediately “put on airs,” and on her visits to the capital with
her husband she will ruffle it for a day or two in the smartest of new
dresses and the biggest of hats, just to advertise the agreeable fact
that they are “getting on.”
Marriage possibilities form the favourite gossip of the community, and
the _Standard_ even publishes copies of invitations that have been sent
out by the most ordinary members of the community, introducing them with
the words “The following wedding invitations are now in circulation.”
The most vital crisis in European affairs will receive less space than
the wedding of John Jones and Mary Smith. The favourite paper of the
community teems daily with the most trivial personalities, even the
social movements of a railway clerk not being deemed unworthy of record.
The lack of entertainment causes amateur theatricals to flourish, and
the English papers will “spread themselves” on a three or four column
criticism of the most ordinary amateurish production of, say, “The Count
of Luxembourg,” while there will not be lacking foolish people to assert
that the amateur production was in every respect finer than anything
that could be seen in the principal London theatres. There are two or
three of these dramatic societies with long rolls of membership, and the
performances are given in the regular theatres some half-a-dozen times
per annum, these functions being admirable occasions for the display of
new toilettes on the part of the ladies of the audience, and an airing
for the gentlemen’s swallow-tails.
I often thought it was evidence of the dearth of social entertainment
that British residents were always eager for an opportunity to dine at
any of the hotels, although they could have done as well, if not better,
in their own homes, so far as food was concerned. An invitation to
dinner at the hotel had evidently all the charm of an “event” for them.
Those who maintained a widish circle of friends would also occasionally
offer an “At Home” at the hotel most patronised by the English and the
Americans. In short, one felt from the straits to which they seemed to be
put for amusement and distraction, that there was a great social hunger
in the community; but on reflection I could see that even those evidences
of pettiness which somewhat grated on one fresh from the larger life of
London, were more apparent than real, and the British residents in Buenos
Ayres were solving fairly well the problem of existing as social beings
in an unfavourable environment. It was the little round of the most
ordinary social engagements, magnified into artificial importance, that
helped to make their exile pleasant. I can even imagine myself falling
into a condition out there that would make the report of the wedding of
two local nobodies quite interesting reading.
The various literary societies were also productive of some intellectual
intercourse, and although I attended none, thanks to the English dailies
I was able to read many papers delivered at their meetings, reprinted
at full length, which showed a fair average of literary attainment. On
the other hand, the most contemptible rubbish that I have seen in print
took the form of letters to the editor of the _Standard_ or the _Herald_,
which gave admittance to good and bad indiscriminately. Ignorant
diatribes against English politicians and home affairs from uneducated
residents, who rejoiced to sneer at their motherland, too often found
their way into type instead of into the waste basket, and could not but
exercise a bad influence on other ignorant members of the community.
Nay, it was among the British colony that I found more ignorance and
bigotry than I did amongst the natives, the Spaniards, the French, or the
Germans. Some of the sanest criticisms of the country to which I listened
were made by natives and Spaniards, and also by Italians. I found the
Britishers seldom had a well-balanced opinion to deliver: they were
either disgusted with everything and longing to be home, or delighted
with everything and never wishing to return. Out of many I can recall to
mind, I shall select two, both young men, and both typical asses, whom
I may describe as pro-Argentines, although neither was naturalised, and
both had only been about five years in the country.
The first I shall describe as Mr. Q——, a notorious bore, who must surely
have earned a wide reputation for his habit of monopolising the talk in
whatever company he finds himself. I first came into contact with him
after listening patiently to a long harangue, addressed chiefly to a
group of innocent ladies, on the amazing progress of the Argentine. Not
a single statement that he made had a remote connection with fact. I sat
by uncomplaining until he assured his admiring female group that Buenos
Ayres in the last thirty years had not only become the third largest
city in the world, but that in fifty years it would unquestionably
have exceeded London in the matter of population. This was too much. I
offered to bet the gentleman a thousand pesos to one that he was talking
nonsense, and that Buenos Ayres, apart from being already notoriously
disproportionate in population to the country as a whole, was not third,
but thirteenth of the world’s large cities, in proof of which I was
fortunately able to produce within ten minutes _Whitaker’s Almanac_
for 1912. I did not, however, receive my peso, as Mr. Q—— declined to
accept _Whitaker_ as an authority, stating his information was based on
statistics issued by the Argentine Government! Of course no such fool
statistics have ever been issued, the third city of the world (Paris)
containing twice the population of Buenos Ayres, though covering a much
smaller area.
I had many other encounters with the same gentleman, who, having acquired
some land which he was endeavouring to transfer to the public on the
most philanthropic basis (to himself), had turned himself into a walking
advertisement for the glorious Argentine, and never ceased to explain to
visitors how completely played out was Great Britain, how rapidly she
was sliding down the slippery slope to oblivion, while the Argentine was
forging ahead on the path to world-empire! Please do not imagine I am
exaggerating one tittle the declarations of this British driveller, who,
by the way, hadn’t acquired a single sentence of Spanish in five years!
He pictured Buenos Ayres as the future hub of the world’s civilisation,
this purely agricultural country of the Argentine (featureless and ill
adapted for any purpose other than the growing of luxurious crops and
the rearing of vast herds of cattle), as a teeming land of wondrous
industries, before which such things as England, America, France, and
Germany have achieved would have to pale their ineffectual fires. No
argument of sanity that could be advanced disturbed the calm serenity
with which this self-constituted trumpeter of the Argentine reiterated
stupidities that would have put the most perfervid patriot to the blush.
I have described Mr. Q—— at some little length, because, bore though he
is, he is typical of a certain class of Englishman whom one encounters
in the Argentine, and for whom Argentine and average Englishman alike
have a wholesome contempt. He is one of those aggressive, self-assertive
“Anglo-Argentines” who go home occasionally and blow about this new land
of promise, to the ultimate disillusionment of such as give ear.
The other Englishman I have in mind, who also typifies a certain class,
is less offensively anti-British than Mr. Q——, and his observations
being based upon a little knowledge and a large inexperience, he is
more amenable to reason than the Mr. Q’s, who are mere windbags, that
seek to cloak their lack of success at home by magnifying their changed
condition in the new land. Mr. F——, as I shall call the other, had a
little knack from time to time of dropping such sage remarks as, “Where
in the whole of London will you find such evidence of wealth as you do in
a walk along the Avenida Alvear?”—“Where in London will you see so many
beautiful dresses, such wealth in millinery, as at Palermo on a Sunday
afternoon?”—“Talk about the business of London, what is it in comparison
with the business of Buenos Ayres?”—“Were you not astounded at the
magnificent buildings when you came to Buenos Ayres, all so bright and
clean looking, after London?”—and so on _ad nauseam_.
We dubbed Mr. F—— “the silly ass observer.” For each of these examples of
his acumen in the art of comparative observation breathes of ignorance
and thoughtlessness. They are, indeed, almost too stupid to call for
notice, but as Mr. F—— was personally a pleasant and amiable young
Englishman, I was often at pains to explain matters to him, and always
found that at the root of his odious comparisons lay the simple fact
that he had lived in London with his eyes shut and his mind untouched
by the grandeur that surrounded him. How many hundreds of thousands of
young men are like Mr. F——! They look on the old familiar things of home
with unseeing eyes, and when, perchance, in some new land they begin to
take notice, they lack standards of comparison to guide them. When I
explained to poor Mr. F——, who was honestly overwhelmed by the glory that
is Buenos Ayres, that Threadneedle Street or Lombard Street in ye antique
city of London, though they look as nothing to the eye that cannot see
beyond their drab and smoky walls, might comfortably purchase the entire
Argentine and all that in it is, from the torrid north to the foggy
south, and have something over to be going on with; when I impressed him
with the undoubted fact that most of the wealth which he saw around him
had come into being thanks to British money, and that a very substantial
portion of the profits being derived from the exploitation of the country
went every year into London pockets, he began to see things in a new
light. To compare the Avenida Alvear with Park Lane, merely shows that
one has not observed Park Lane, or that he is not aware that the Avenida
Alvear and the few streets thereabout which represent the Mayfair,
Belgravia, and West End of London, are as an inch to an ell. Mr. F—— is
very representative of the “cable boy” standard of intelligence, but
in other respects a fine, clean English type, that one would value all
the more as an element in the British Colony were it given to a little
reflection before it aired its opinions on Argentine and the world in
general, of which its experience has been notably slight.
Hardly at all does the emigrant class enter into the British Colony.
British workpeople there are occasionally to be met throughout the
Argentine, but the country as a whole is ill adapted for them. Any person
who by word of mouth or writing spreads abroad the idea that artisans or
those of the labouring class of Great Britain will find the Argentine an
attractive field, may be doing a very mischievous thing. The conditions
of life in which the Italian emigrants, the Spaniards, Poles, Russians,
Syrians, and all the rest of them herd together in the cities or make
shift to exist in rough shanties in the Camp are impossible to even
the commonest class of English or Scots workpeople, if the language
difficulty did not exist to make matters still worse for them.
But many British workpeople are there under conditions very different
from those of the other emigrants. They are chiefly railway engineers,
employed as foremen or as expert workers in the great workshops of the
different railway companies, or as locomotive drivers. Their conditions
of life, although I fail to see wherein they are greatly superior to
those obtaining in their native land among their class, having regard to
the different purchasing value of the wages earned, are at least made
agreeable by association with fellow-workers of their own race, and the
possibility of saving more money than they would be likely to do at home.
For example, where a working man in England might be able to save £20
($100) per year, he can at least contrive to save the same relative
proportion from his wages in the Argentine, and as his wages will not
be less than double, and perhaps two and a half times what they would
have been in England, by the same ratio may his savings be increased.
These workmen have also security of employment, and, in fine, must not be
confounded with the emigrant class. They find grievances, none the less,
and even went on strike in the year 1911.
[Illustration: A MODERN “ESTANCIA” HOMESTEAD BUILT OF CONCRETE.]
Owing to the little communities in which they live being almost entirely
British, they do not assimilate with the natives, and few of them, even
after many years in the country, have picked up more than some odd words
of the language. A friend of mine, who was rather shaky in his Spanish,
was waylaid at a railway station in the interior and wished to have a
train stopped at a point along the line where there was no station, to
enable him to reach a certain _estancia_. He managed to explain this in
Spanish to the station-master, but the latter was unable to interpret it
to the engine-driver, who turned out to be English and did not know a
word of what he called “their blooming lingo!” These sturdy and skilled
artisans naturally do not count in the British Colony of Buenos Ayres,
and most of them live in the railway centres of the provinces, and come
only occasionally to the capital for a trip.
What must strike the British visitor in Buenos Ayres with a curious air
of home is the railway bookstall at Retiro, Once, or at Constitución.
The former looks as familiar as a London suburban bookstall, with all
sorts of English periodicals, from the _Strand Magazine_ to _Comic
Cuts_, bundles of “sixpenny” and “sevenpenny” novels, _The Times_, weekly
edition, _Lloyds’ News_, and many another familiar title, though the
prices charged are naturally two or three times those printed on the
periodicals. These are evidence of the large English community residing
in the various suburbs served from the stations named. The English
bookshops in the heart of the city are also well-known centres, being
entirely patronised by the “colony,” but the English grocers drive a
large business with the native population, and employ many assistants who
only speak Spanish. Still, British housewives have no need to acquire the
language, as they may transact all their business in their native tongue,
and it is no rare thing to meet a lady who in twenty years of Buenos
Ayres has not even got to know the Spanish names of the common objects of
the dinner table. In the provinces, however, most foreign lady residents
have to acquire at least a smattering of the native lingo.
A further element in the “colony” may be described as the floating
population of British visitors who make periodical journeys to the
Argentine in pursuit of business. The stay-at-home has no faint notion
of the extraordinary trafficking of his race in foreign parts. Veritable
battalions of commercial travellers representing British houses visit
the Argentine each year, staying from two to six months at a time, and
the hotels are always sheltering Englishmen who seem to have nothing to
do beyond taking their meals and playing billiards for weeks on end, but
who are really waiting the signing-up of contracts. One gentleman I knew
had put in nearly nine months of this strenuous work, and eventually
left in despair. The contract for which he had been waiting so long was
fixed up about three weeks afterwards, and went to a German firm whose
representative had perhaps been more patient in waiting, or more liberal
(or more discreet) in his bestowal of backsheesh.
Those visitors whose stays are short do not fare badly in the Argentine
capital, and as a rule retain rather pleasant memories of the place,
although not a few with whom I conversed really dreaded the necessity
of having to return, as they found time hang so heavily on their hands.
Then there comes occasionally one of the scribbling fraternity, who fixes
a little round of engagements, hurries to see the sights of the place,
and flits away again to entertain a public quite as well-informed as he
or she may be by the little that he or she has seen in the few days’
stay. I spent some time with an American correspondent, who did not
know a word either of French or Spanish, and yet had the fortitude to
contribute a series of articles to one of the local papers, giving his
valuable impressions of a country and a people into whose mind he was not
able even to peep. His articles, of course, were written in English and
translated into Spanish, and were published with great _fanfarronada_,
although his literary reputation was unknown even to me, whose business
it has been for many years to keep in touch with literary reputations on
both sides of the Atlantic.
The regulation course for the “globe-trotter” who flits through the
Argentine for a week or so, to write a book thereon, is to motor round
the various public buildings, interview a few of the official heads,
endeavouring, if possible, to have a talk with the President,—a
comparatively easy matter in all South American Republics, the President
being sort of _ex-officio_ Chief of Publicity,—engineer an invitation to
a model _estancia_ to stay overnight, and an interview with a reporter
from the _Standard_ to announce the gestation of the great work that will
later see the light in London or New York. The usual practice of the more
or less distinguished visitor is to deliver himself of the most fulsome
flattery of all that he has seen, and to lay on the butter with a trowel.
To this rule there are occasional exceptions, and I gather that the
Princess of Pless, who paid Buenos Ayres a visit in August of 1913, when
I was staying in Chili, was one of these exceptions. The Buenos Ayres
correspondent of _La Union_ of Santiago sent to his paper an amusing
little article on the Princess, which I think worthy of translating, as
it will make an acceptable tailpiece to this chapter. He wrote:
She has gone! A wandering star, seeking a constellation wherein
she may shine with due refulgence and without suffering eclipse
from other stars of greater brilliance. She had a glimpse of
the Argentine in her dreams as the ideal land of aristocracy by
having read in the “British Cyclopædia” (_sic_) that in this
country there are no titles of nobility other than those of the
wash-tub.
Yesterday she stated in one of her farewell confidences: “I go
away horribly disappointed! Not a sauvage (_sic_), not a tiger,
not a Paraguayan crocodile!”
What a useless voyage! To confront the dangers of three
thousand leagues of sea and twenty days of poor food and worse
sleep to come to see savages, when these can be found in
thousands within twenty-four hours of London! In this poor
America there remain no other savages than those Europeans
who exploit the miserable natives of Putumayo. The veritable
Indians of the tales of Fenimore Cooper and of Gustave Aimard,
the scalp hunters, the throat cutters, the mutilators of
children, are to be found in the very heart of Europe, in the
countries of “The Merry Widow.” There the Princess ought to
have gone a-hunting for those sanguinary curiosities and to
satisfy her appetite for exotics.
She came here nervously afraid of the prospect of being carried
off by Calufucurá, and even resisted the temptation to visit
the _estancia_ of Pereyra, fearing lest the Cacique Catriel
should force her to prepare the pipe of counsel surrounded by
his tribe, and she goes away disenchanted by not having seen
an Indian even in the distance, and disgusted at having had to
suffer the sugary gallantries of some of our dandies of the old
school, little fortunate in the conquest of princesses.
But, above all, what mortified her most and most precipitated
her departure, rendering her ill at ease during her stay in
Buenos Ayres, is the fact that she did not rank here in the
front file of beauty, nor shine above the rest in fashion,
nor find herself in any sort a protagonist. She was no more
than one among the mass of our women, and less than many of
our distinguished ladies. Thus she has gone as she came, after
having attempted to discover some labyrinthine forest never
visited by man, without encountering more than cultivated
soil and agricultural machines where she had hoped to see
Indians discharging their poisoned arrows and brandishing
their formidable tomahawks. And thus it is that she says in
her despite “America has lost all her virginities, even the
celebrated virginity of her forests!”
Yesterday the Princess embarked, and on seeing her aboard
the _Arayaguaya_, using her walking-stick like a crutch,
to disguise her mincing gait,—alone, with not even the
companionship of a “snob,” who might have attempted to win
her good-will, not even a lady of honour dazzled by her
noble title,—there came to our mind, though altered by the
circumstances, the lines of that farewell elegy on the remains
of Sir John Moore:
“Not a drum was heard, not a triumphal note—As she arrived
at the Dársena Norte—Not a soldier discharged his farwell
schot—When the steamer left the Argentine shore!”
The intrinsic merits of this little sketch and the charm of the
concluding effort in English, surely justify its reproduction! What on
earth the Princess of Pless may have said to lead to this display of
journalistic courtesy, I do not know, but I suspect that she must have
ventured some words of frank criticism, and that is precisely what the
common, untramelled Argentine does not want. He asks for butter, and he
wants it thick, and if you can add a layer of sugar,—for he has a sweet
tooth—so much the better. Most of the British Colony know this, and also
know on which side their bread is buttered. Thus the English visitor
who is indiscreet enough publicly to express a frank and honest opinion
of anything that does not meet with his approval in Buenos Ayres or the
Argentine, will scarcely expect to be grappled to its bosom by hooks of
steel. I am persuaded, however, that the better-class of native Argentine
opinion is quite capable of sustaining honest criticism and profiting
thereby.