A glance at the following table will prove this. It contains the balances of the three principal accounts, upon the 31st of December of the five years from 1904 to 1908 inclusive.
| Year. | Bills in Hand. | Overdrafts in Current Accounts. | Deposits. |
| 1904 | £8,486,326 | £14,384 | £12,561,969 |
| 1905 | 11,842,611 | 2,589,167 | 15,501,340 |
| 1906 | 13,364,585 | 1,907,818 | 15,163,974 |
| 1907 | 16,502,621 | 2,731,314 | 18,008,501 |
| 1908 | 19,049,798 | 2,897,008 | 20,713,375 |
We see from these figures that in five years the business done has increased by more than 101⁄2 millions of pounds; the overdrafts in current accounts by nearly £300,000 (in four years, 1905-1908), and the deposits by more than £8,000,000.
The Bank of the Nation has one hundred and ten branch establishments scattered all over the Argentine, and their number is continually increasing. Here are the figures relating to the three principal accounts in these branch establishments during the same period:—
| Year. | Bills in Hand. | Overdrafts on Current Accounts. | Deposits. |
| 1904 | £5,111,481 | £3,744 | £5,187,982 |
| 1905 | 6,987,847 | 349,427 | 6,842,559 |
| 1906 | 8,557,900 | 570,350 | 7,707,001 |
| 1907 | 9,848,713 | 860,899 | 8,433,003 |
| 1908 | 11,196,690 | 744,119 | 10,210,650 |
We find here, among the branch establishments, an increase of over £6,000,000 in the bills in hand; nearly £740,000 in the overdrafts on current accounts; and over £5,000,000 on the deposits.
These exceedingly satisfactory results have been obtained by the National Bank by means of a nominal capital of £9,680,000. We use the phrase “nominal capital” with intention, for although this sum figures on the balance-sheets of the bank, we must remember that in this capital are included State bonds, which would have furnished, had they been negotiated, an available sum of £3,212,000 in paper-money, and that the net profits of the year 1908 are also
included, amounting to £644,036 in paper, which by law must go to increase the “Capital and Reserve Funds.” The two accounts, after the deduction of the sums accruing to them as profit, amount respectively to £9,697,946 in paper-money and £1,303,248 in gold. It follows from this that if the Banco del Nacion, instead of being an official institution, were an ordinary bank, it would have been able to pay its shareholders a dividend of 10 per cent. upon its paid-up shares.
The data we have just given prove abundantly that the Bank of the Nation has been directed by a hand as firm as it is prudent, and there is every reason to suppose that it will continue in the future to serve public and private interests as well as it does to-day. The forecast we predicted in the first edition of this book will have proved mistaken; a forecast based upon the authoritative opinion of an eminent Argentine statesman, who affirmed that the official banks “bore within them the germs of the moral and financial ruin of the country.” He even added that one should never “incorporate a bank with the political administration of a State, because sooner or later it will be used as a political weapon.”
We must here pay our respects to the memory of Dr Ramon Santamarina, a former president of the Administrative Council of this establishment, whose premature death was a great loss to the bank and to the country. It is, indeed, to his intelligent and circumspect management of affairs that we owe a great measure of the happy results obtained.