TUCUMÁN
This Province is bounded on the North by the Province of Salta, on the West and South by the Province of Catamarca and on the East by the Province of Santiago del Estero.
It has the smallest superficial area of all the Argentine Provinces; being less than one-eleventh the size of Buenos Aires and less than one-fifth that of Santiago del Estero.
It, however, is a very important Province, because it produces over 90% of the whole sugar output of the Republic. It also grows an appreciable quantity of maize, but when, in Argentina, one says Tucumán one is almost invariably thought to be about to speak of sugar.
It always has been the sugar-producing area of the River Plate Territories; from the time of the Jesuit Missionaries, say, about the middle of the eighteenth century. The first modern sugar-manufacturing machinery was set up in Tucumán in 1879.
The whole matter of the Argentine Sugar industry was for long hedged about with fiscal and other questions and a great sensitiveness on the part of the growers and refiners in regard to their discussion. That a certain number of companies divided the whole of the industry between them was undoubted fact, as was the equally obvious one that they carried on business in accordance rather with their ideas of their own commercial interests than in any larger or more philanthropic spirit. Sugar is still much dearer for the Argentine consumer than there seems any good reason for. Special legislature has operated until recently as an exceptional protection to this industry, thus maintaining, as was vehemently urged in many quarters, a monopoly, to the extent of being relieved of any foreign competition, in the hands of the Tucumán Companies who conducted their affairs in a mutually friendly fashion.
Their opponents throughout the country said that Tucumán (the sugar interests there are still inseparably connected with Provincial politics and politicians) not only waxed fat at the public expense, but did so by means and methods opposed to the public interest. Certainly legislature offered temptation to artificial limitation of output, and it was chiefly in regard to this—burning of productive cane-fields and so forth—that the sugar companies long stood accused.
On whichever side the balance of the arguments for or against the doings of the Tucumán sugar industry may have lain it may be safely asserted that no political influence can nowadays continue to bolster up commercial malpractices of any magnitude in Argentina. The National Government has already seen and will see to it that no hole-in-the-corner Provincial politics shall interfere with the National welfare and credit. Influence, although still powerful in minor matters, can no longer suffice to avoid any matter of public importance being exposed to examination by the full light of day.
Tucumán is well aware of this, and therefore can be relied on, and indeed must be, to trim her sails to the healthy wind by which the course of the Republic is now determined.
It is only fair to add that the Tucumán Sugar Companies’ argument in their own defence to the suggestion of an inequitable monopoly exercised by them is, in effect, “Well, supposing that we have been making very large profits of late years, we have borne the brunt of hard times for many more, before the industry had developed to its present extent and before we were able to obtain assistance or even practical encouragement from the State. And besides, were we wrong in making hay whilst the sun shone? Any day may bring us competition in the shape of the rise of new cane-fields in other Northern districts of this fertile Republic.”
This is at least sympathetic if not strictly legitimate reasoning.
In the meantime the Province of Tucumán has grown prosperous, and the employment of more enlightened methods of conducting all branches of its sugar industry has recently resulted in enhanced prosperity coupled with a largely increased output. The City of Tucumán, its Capital, one of the pleasantest and most progressive towns in Argentina, has no less than five different railway stations pertaining to lines connecting it with Buenos Aires (of which the Central Argentine is the most direct) and local systems.
The vegetation of the Plazas and Boulevards of the City is subtropical and social demands have provided Tucumán with an ornate Casino connected with a vast modern Hotel and theatre. Electric light and tramways abound in its orange-flower scented streets and public places, among which must now be counted a huge Park designed to celebrate the 1910 centenary. A special building enshrines the historic room in which the Declaration of Independence was signed.
Buildings of the Colonial period still exist in Tucumán and its outskirts, but the dominant tendency is towards modernity in architecture and all else. The City is picturesquely situated in a valley among hills which appear to surround it and give it a curious appearance of having, with its Casino, brilliantly lit avenues and gardens and its luxuriant vegetation, sprung into existence as a scene on some vast stage.
It has a winter season of ever-growing social importance; during which the great Sugar Families occupy their palatial villas and display dark beauty and grace to the music of the band in the Plaza Independencia and at the Casino and Theatre.
Irrigation is easily attained over the most part of this Province, from the Dulce River and its many tributaries as well as from several other streams.
Tucumán grows some wheat, but not much, its principal crops (after, of course, sugar) being maize and alfalfa.
It has comparatively little live stock, owing largely to the general humidity of its soil. It has, however, an exceptionally large aggregate of population for its size in comparison with other Provinces.
Parts of Tucumán are forest, part mountainous with peaks clad in everlasting snow from which accumulate innumerable turbulent mountain streams. For picturesque and varied scenery of almost every kind Tucumán is perhaps preeminent in the Republic. Its valleys are with very few exceptions fertile and well watered.
This Province has several fairly important towns situated on the railways which traverse its central and southern districts.