IMMIGRATION
As has been noticed under the heading “Racial Elements,” most of the immigration to the River Plate has hitherto passed Montevideo and landed at Buenos Aires. Over 300,000 immigrants landed in Argentina in 1913; composed chiefly, and in point of numerical importance, in the following order, of Spaniards, Italians, “Turcos” (Syrians or Levantines), Russians (mostly Jewish), French, Germans, Austrians, Portuguese and British. British arrivals on the River Plate consist chiefly of the salaried classes; who, not being classed as immigrants, do not appear on the Government returns from which the above figures are taken. The only other noteworthy point about Argentine immigration is that now the Spanish element largely predominates instead of, as formerly, the Italian.
GRAIN ELEVATORS: MADERO DOCK, BUENOS AIRES
CHAPTER IX
GENERAL STATISTICS
During the past twenty years the foreign trade of Argentina and Uruguay (especially that of the former country) has developed very largely and rapidly; its increase during the decade 1904-1913 being, in the case of Argentina, 108½% and in that of Uruguay 104%. The increase in both cases is considerably greater than that of the trade of any other South American country; as will be seen from the following figures:—
| $ | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Argentina. | 1913 | 996,215,998 | ||
| 1904 | 477,985,737 | |||
| gold | 518,230,261 | 108·5% | increase. | |
| Uruguay. | 1913 | 119,500,000 | ||
| 1904 | 58,481,343 | |||
| Uruguayan | 61,018,657 | 104% | ” | |
| Chile. | 1913 | 725,828,254 | ||
| 1904 | 370,149,864 | |||
| Chilian | 355,678,390 | 94·5% | ” | |
| Brazil. | 1913 | 1,976,733,388 | ||
| 1904 | 1,288,955,306 | |||
| milreis | 687,778,082 | 54% | ” |
The figure $996,215,998 gold if divided by 7,731,257, representing the population of Argentina, gives $129 gold, or £25 11s. 10d., value of trade per inhabitant of that country; a very high figure indeed. The value of the trade of Uruguay per head of her population is £21 3s. 6d.
In 1913 Argentina alone provided the markets of the United Kingdom with cereals and meat to the value of £34,500,000 of a total of £92,300,000, or nearly 37½% of its total supplies. During the same year Uruguay sent meat to the United Kingdom to the value of some £202,000 sterling.