The Argentine in the Twentieth Century

by Alberto B. Martínez; Maurice Lewandowski

the one hand towards increasing the wealth of the country by participating largely in its exports, and on the other it increases its power of consumption, by absorbing a greater number of imported products.

Thus the evolution of the Argentine towards agriculture constitutes a real progress, and if the country continues to follow the same path, its development will assuredly not be arrested by lack of soil. The 35 to 37 millions of acres already reclaimed, and at present under culture, represent at the most a tenth of the total area of cultivable land, which is estimated roughly at 375 millions of acres, of which at least 125 millions are perfectly adapted to the culture of cereals. The four Provinces of Buenos Ayres, Santa Fé, Córdoba, Entre Rios, and the Territory of Pampa Central alone contain some 32¹⁄₂ millions of land under the plough, while there remains about 170 millions of acres of land which is just as fertile, and which without manuring or preparation would yield a splendid crop from the first year of tilth.

This transformation into an agricultural country has already borne fruit. The figures relating to external commerce, compared with the world’s statistics of cereal production, show the present position of the Argentine among the great exporting nations.

It is the Argentine which to-day, after the United States, occupies the second rank in the matter of cereal exports; and this is a significant event in the economic history of the nations, to which the attention of Europe should be directed. At the present moment the Argentine, with her 4 million tons of corn available for exportation, is not as yet mistress of the grain markets, but she represents, to those countries whose production is insufficient, a notable reserve, which has become indispensable since the United States, Canada, and Russia seem to have reached their limit of exportation.

The year 1907-8 was for the Argentine, thanks to the results of a good harvest, a period of exceptional prosperity. The average yield of wheat was 18·7 cwt. per hectare—14 bushels per acre—and in the Province of Buenos Ayres it amounted to over a ton per hectare—or 15 bushels per

acre—although the average was only 11 per acre in 1906-1907, and 13 in 1905-1906.

As for the prices, they ruled higher than any the country had so far known, even during its most prosperous periods. Wheat had been selling at 6 or 7 piastres the 100 kilos—that is, approximately, at 3s. to 3s. 6d. per bushel—and at that price agriculture still yielded a fair profit. In 1908, as a result of the bad harvests in several European countries, the sales rose to 6s.; at which price the profits on the cost of production amounted to 25% or 30%.

After this cursory glance at the present situation in the Argentine, we must also express our views of the future. Optimism is certainly permissible in the case of a country which has advanced so far in so short a time, and where prosperity is founded on a diversity of products which can never be affected by a universal crisis.

However, one well might wonder whether the Argentine might not, in the Biblical phrase, know lean years following the fat; whether she is not destined to suffer the onset of plagues, such as drought and the locust, which latter is to her, as to Egypt in the time of the Israelites, a veritable scourge. Certainly here we have one of the great risks to which the country is exposed: a country wherein all depends upon the harvest, the earth being the principal source of wealth, and the mother of all industry. Yet this danger, so real a few years ago, is greatly lessened to-day by the fact of the distribution of cultivated lands and pastures over a far greater area. A bad harvest could not compromise both agriculture and stock-raising over a stretch of more than 15° of latitude.

Yet the country is subject to a very real danger, but one of another kind. From the very exuberance of development may arise a crisis of growth; for her prosperity depends not only on plentiful harvests; it may be influenced by other factors on which it is far more difficult to pronounce.