[76] It should perhaps be explained that the totals are correctly converted from the Argentine values, but are not the exact sums of the columns of figures, as these latter are for economy of space printed without the following decimals that result from conversion. The error in any one case is infinitesimal—from 1⁄100th to 1⁄1000th of 1 per cent.—[Trans.]
In the matter of exports the first place is again held by England, with an exportation of £15,664,944 in 1908 as against £10,743,230 in 1907, an increase of £4,421,714.
England is the Argentine’s largest client in the matter of agricultural produce, taking 16 per cent. of the whole amount exported. In 1907 she spent £3,739,509 on chilled meats; £1,843,954 on cereals—wheat, maize, and linseed; £1,212,471 on wools; £193,834 on butter, and £379,810 on sheepskins and cowhides, dried and salted. Australia also imports wheat and maize from the Argentine.[77]
[77] These figures are for 1907 except where otherwise stated.—[Trans.]
The export trade to England is still capable of a far greater expansion, if England will only determine to allow cattle on the hoof to be imported once more; an import she denied herself some years ago, on account of anthrax, and one which the Argentine is eagerly begging her to resume, under proper sanitary regulations.
It is England which has hitherto preserved the closest balance between her exports to and imports from the Argentine, and no other country has so far been able to oust her from her dominant position in the Argentine foreign trade. From this we see that the ties which unite the two countries have nothing factitious about them; a fact which is still further emphasised by the statistics of English capital employed in the Argentine.
Germany holds the second place, with her £6,950,399 of imports from the Argentine (in 1908: £7,284,611 in 1907). After England, she is the greatest consumer of Argentine wool; the exports of this product in 1907 amounted in value to £2,846,213. Other articles absorbed by Germany are hides (to the value of £1,045,417), and cereal products—wheat, maize, linseed,and bran—(to the value of £1,013,426). The German imports from the Argentine do not, however, include cattle or chilled meats.
France, up to 1876, occupied the first place on the scale of Argentine exports. To-day her imports from the Argentine amount to £5,782,750 only (1908), or nearly £10,000,000 less than the English imports (in 1907 they amounted to £7,552,409). Her purchases in the Argentine are confined to a very few products, of which the chiefest is wool, the value of the export in 1907 being £4,908,510, or a little less than half the entire Argentine production. Then come hides, to the value of £1,508,764; then linseed, maize, and wheat to
the value of £309,956, £322,473, and £271,488 respectively, the whole imports from the Argentine in 1907 being £7,552,419.