fears is that when there is need for works of a certain degree of importance, such as would give a stimulus to the material progress of the country, or at least to endow the country with new buildings and constructive works, the budget never comes to the rescue, and the end is always an issue of internal stock.
Of late years the Republic has enjoyed a pastoral and agricultural yield such as it has never seen in its economic existence. This double yield, the result of energy favoured by climate, was not only remarkable for abundance, but the prices which it commanded in the international markets were the highest that have ever been known up to the present. All would seem to indicate that in consequence of this abundance the Argentine Treasury would overflow with money; that it would be in a position to meet all the current expenses of administration, and also many of the extraordinary expenses which are demanded by a nation in process of formation for the stimulation of its material progress.
Unhappily it has not been so. The ordinary revenue, like the national production, has exhibited a marvellous elasticity: but in spite of that it has not been enough to cover the ordinary expenses.
Turning from the shadows that obscure the picture of the financial and economic situation, we may, in spite of all, conclude that investors who have placed their capital in Argentine loans may be fully reassured that the interest will be scrupulously forthcoming. Although the majority of the loans have been employed in other ways than those intended at the time of their issue, it is none the less true that by their aid certain works of national utility have been effected, which could not have been realised without such resources. To cite only two, let us recall the fact that the nation has spent £10,976,304 in the construction of railways; while the Buenos Ayres Water Supply and Drainage Works absorbed £6,530,000.
Again, as the great Argentine financier Señor Tornquist has said, we must not forget that although the country avoided a war with Chili it was only by allowing £15,000,000 to be swallowed up in ships and armaments; and this was done without recourse to the outside world for loans, after
not less than £4,000,000 had been absorbed by military preparations in the interior. These sums, representing nearly a quarter of the present debt, were spent to avoid a fratricidal war, which would have cost us ten times as dearly.
Apart from the fruitful application of loans, the creditors of the Argentine must also consider the sacrifices made by various Governments to defend and uphold the financial credit of the Republic. The service of the first loan contracted by the nation—that of 1824—was, as we know, suspended during the melancholy period of tyranny and national dissolution; but hardly was the Argentine family reunited, hardly was a regular Government established, when the latter hastened to resume the liquidation of the liabilities which had been contracted. President Avellaneda, in a solemn moment, has eloquently recalled the facts:—
“There is a new nation in the process of birth, possessed of the sentiment of its own greatness; either by a puerile hallucination or by the revelation of its destiny. It has barely formed a Government; but already it imagines vast schemes; it asks and obtains money from London; for capital, although she is represented as hard and having no bowels of compassion, knows often a sudden tenderness for dreams.
“But the dreams of this people are quickly destroyed: then follows anarchy, with its long and lamentable lapses of self-knowledge: anarchy, into which young societies fall, by the very weakness of their native elements; until at length they are seized by the iron hands of tyranny, as was indeed the fate of Argentina. And a tyranny that endured for twenty years! Wretched nation! Unhappy Argentina! Her voice was all but dumb, failing in the depths of that abyss!...
“The bonds of that debt were quoted on the London Exchange; but in time they were quoted no more, for they had at length lost all value; even their name was erased. A day came, however, when the children of Argentina’s creditors went to search for their bonds among forgotten papers; and the bonds were redeemed. For many that was a day of legitimate surprise; the bearers had offered their paper to their debtors at any price; but now they were told that they would receive its written value. It was enough for them