All the vicissitudes through which the Argentine has passed in the course of the nineteenth century have left their traces upon the history of the National Debt. To the legitimate uses of credit have been joined abuses; but all this now belongs to the past, and we do not intend, in a book dealing with matters as they are, to recount this history at length, nor to comment upon it nor criticise it.
The consolidated National Debt, on the 1st July 1909, amounted to £62,892,428. It may be analysed as follows:—
| ForeignDebt.[101] | ||
| Circulation on | Annual Cost, | |
| 1st January | Interest and | |
| 1909. | Amortisation. | |
| £ | £ | |
| Loans at 5 per cent. | 23,350,139·76 | 1,702,585·29 |
| Loans at 41⁄2 per cent. | 7,697,262·88 | 516,147·42 |
| Loans at 4 per cent. | 29,820,312·79 | 1,454,465·64 |
| Loans at 31⁄2 per cent. | 2,004,710·40 | 121,238·09 |
| ——————— | —————— | |
| Total | £62,882,425·83 | £3,794,436·44 |
[101] By 15th September 1909, the amount of the debt had been reduced to the following figures: 5 per cent., £22,702,330; 41⁄2 per cent., £7,579,580: 4 per cent., £29,728,562; 3 per cent., £1,920,000; total, £61,930,472.
In the total given above is an important sum of which the cost, though entered in the National Budget, is really borne by the various provinces. Items in this amount are a sum of
£6,800,000, for which the Province of Buenos Ayres is responsible; the £3,000,000 of the conversion loan of Santa Fé; £2,800,000 taken up by Entre Rios; and the Córdoba conversion loan of £1,000,000; while Mendoza accounts for £600,000 and the National Bank in liquidation, for £1,800,000. This establishment, although belonging to the Government, bears the cost of its debt out of its own resources. Eliminating these £16,000,000, we find that the external debt, whose cost is borne by the Treasury, amounts not to nearly £63,000,000, but to £47,000,000.
We shall ultimately have occasion to inquire how far this debt weighs upon the resources of the Treasury, what the burden per inhabitant amounts to, and how it stands in relation to the debts of other countries. For the moment we must glance backward in order to realise the historical conditions under which this debt was contracted, and what its destination has been.[102] The first credit transaction effected by the Republic abroad was concluded a few years after the Declaration of Independence. In 1822 the Province of Buenos Ayres, which had always been the heart and head of the Republic, taking its place, indeed, under certain conditions, and under others representing it in foreign countries, was fortunate in having at its head a progressive Government, which, by its profitable initiative, has left ineradicable traces behind it. The President was General Martino Rodriguez; the Ministers included Bernadino Rivadavia and Manuelo-Josepho Garcia.
[102] See, in The North American Review for May 1902, an article by Señor Alberto Martinez, entitled: “National Debts of the World. IX. Public Debt of Argentina.”
This Government cast its eyes over the empty surface of the vast Argentine territory; it saw immense wealth unexploited, for lack of the necessary elements; it realised its great need of material progress, and understood, with a just and clairvoyant judgment, that of all these needs the most urgent were the construction of a port for the exchange of products with the outside world, the instalment of a water supply which would ensure health to the inhabitants, and the establishment of villages along the line of the new frontier, serving as desert outposts, and constituting a military pale to withstand and confine the irruptions of the savage Indians.