undertakings and from the national domains being thus eliminated from the list of effective revenues, as being nominal or insignificant, we see that the nation has no other positive resources than the customs duties and imposts upon consumption. This explains the development of the budgets of the last few years, in which the domestic and indirect duties have increased the fiscal receipts.[99]
[99] See Memoria del Ministerio de Hacienda, 1895, Vols. IX. and XI.
One of the characteristics of the present situation of the Argentine is the remarkable elasticity displayed by the increase of the fiscal resources. At the present time few countries in the world present a similar spectacle. Here, more than in any other country, the official revenues are in direct relation to the result of the harvests and the exportation of the products of the ranch; so that the table of fiscal receipts is a kind of infallible barometer, which measures the degree of wealth and prosperity of the general population.
If—not to go back too far in our investigations—we take the thirteen years from 1895 to 1908 as an example, and if we convert into gold the sums received in paper, according to the average rate of exchange for each of these years, we find, in the first place, that in 1895 the Treasury received £7,600,000. Since then these figures have increased in rapid progression; passing from £7,600,000 to £8,600,000; thence to £10,000,000; thence to £10,600,000; thence to £14,600,000; but in 1900, through economic causes such as the loss of harvests, anthrax, the closing of English ports to Argentine live-stock, joined to such political causes as the fear of complications with Chili, the revenues fell to £13,000,000. But progress was not long in establishing itself anew; in 1904, the revenue was £15,200,000; in 1907, £21,200,000; and in 1908, £22,400,000, which is the highest figure the administration has ever known.
To appreciate this enormous progress at its true worth, we must take the fact into account that it was precisely during these years that the nation released several sources of revenue which had previously been taxed; such as duties levied on the export of natural products, and on natural or artificial wines, and additional duties levied on importations,
all of which represented a respectable number of millions per annum.
Thus in thirteen years, from 1895 to 1908, the fiscal receipts have increased by £14,800,000, or by 194 per cent.
Such a result cannot but be satisfying, and it would be the most eloquent proof of the intense vitality of the Argentine finances were it not for the still more rapid increase of official expenditure. This also has increased, rapidly and enormously, more often than not exceeding the revenue, and leaving each year a more or less important deficit, which, accumulating from one year to another, has finally to be converted into a consolidated debt, whether foreign or domestic. “The practical result of the budgets from 1863 to the present time,” says an official document, “has been an uninterrupted series of deficits.”[100]
In the face of this situation the patriotic advice which the Minister of Finance, J. M. Rosa, gave the Government and the Congress in a memorable document some years ago, is more than ever applicable.
“We must do our utmost to economise,” he said, “by restraining ourselves and reducing our expenses to the absolutely indispensable. It is only by applying ourselves to the work of simplifying our administrative services, by suppressing useless formalities and superfluous employments, by scrutinising the least details of the public expenditure, that we shall succeed in making large economies. It is certain that to purge the administration of its ancient vices, to sweep away all useless appointments, to refuse to find vacant places at the bidding of power and influence, and to establish the strictest rules of economy, is a task of no mean difficulty; but we cannot stop to think of the animosity and the vindictive temper which it may arouse when duty renders such conduct necessary.”[100]