The time has come to sum up our conclusions, and we cannot do better than attempt to present the figures of the movements of the capital invested in the Argentine, and by stating, as far as possible, its yield. We have already had occasion to declare that Europe has not turned her attention to the young South American Republic for sentimental reasons, nor on account of the beauty of her political institutions nor the splendour of her landscapes. What interests
the general public is the extraction of the riches of the Argentine soil; the economic and industrial expansion of the country, and its fitness as a field for investment and original enterprise.
To respond to this mental attitude we have thought it proper to undertake a dry and impartial inquiry into the value of the capital invested in the Argentine, and the total of its yield. Capital represented by movable values is the only factor which has in some sense an official existence which is amenable to control; it lends itself to statistics sufficiently precise to allow of our estimating, from this point of view, the wealth of a country; and it is consequently in this direction that we may search for a standard with which to compare the favourable estimates expressed in our preceding chapters on the subject of the development and prosperity of the Argentine Republic.
This inventory will lead us to other data, which are equally instructive. In reviewing the movable values and in estimating their yield we shall at the same time examine into the general movement of foreign capital and its earnings, so that we shall be able approximately to state the amount and the profits of the capital invested by the various European nations which have dealt with this country.
By the aid of these statistics we shall finally see the situation of the Argentine, which the results of its foreign trade have shown us only imperfectly, in its true light. Although the country has an extremely favourable commercial balance, which in 1908 was not less than £24,000,000, this sum has to support enormous charges for the payment of interest on loans placed abroad: the dividends of railway companies, of banking houses, of all manner of land companies, of commercial and industrial companies, whose shareholders are abroad, etc. etc. These are the sums we are trying to determine, in order to draw up as exactly as possible the balance-sheet of the Argentine.
This chapter will therefore be devoted to estimating on the one hand what the country owes to foreign capital, and on the other hand what profit foreign capital draws from its investment in the Argentine. It is to some extent the current
account of Europe and the Argentine that we wish to present, taking as our basis the movable values, which are the only serious data upon which we can base our inquiry.[113]
[113] In this book we make use of the figures which Señor Alberto Martinez communicated to the International Statistical Congress, held in Paris in July 1909.
The nominal total of Argentine movable values subscribed up to the 21st December 1908 was £474,396,935 (in gold), of which sum £219,513,399 represents shares, £104,502,163 bonds, and £150,381,572 the public debt of the Nation, the Provinces, the municipalities, the capital of State railways, and the capital of the Bank of the Nation.
If we compare these figures with the inventory of the movable values existing at the end of December 1904, we shall find an increase of £157,173,555. But if we take account of the fact that in the first amount the cedulas of the Province of Buenos Ayres figure to the value of £15,400,000, while in the second they amount to £10,400,000 only (the amount of shares admitted to conversion by the Government), we see that the difference is considerably greater.