In the case of a country which exists under the special conditions which affect the Argentine, where there are no accumulations of capital, where the spirit of enterprise is not very highly developed, and where every commercial or industrial undertaking of any importance has to look to the outer world for support, the total of the sums which leave the country each year to pay for imported articles, to meet the interest on the National Debt, to pay the dividends on the shares of limited companies, and the profits of private undertakings, the interest on capital out on loan, whether on mortgage or otherwise secured, and finally to remunerate capital invested and employed in the thousand different ways peculiar to this period of rapid intercommunication—the total of all these sums must be very great; something, indeed, like a metallic river rolling across the ocean.
So much being granted, the moment has come to present the problem: of the 22 million pounds required to pay the interest on loans, the sinking-fund charges for their redemption, and the dividends of hundreds of companies, what is the proportion which each year leaves the Argentine to become spent or invested abroad, assuring the owners of bonds and shares the best part of the revenue of a distant country, a country endowed with a fertile soil, in which industry has a great future awaiting it? And what proportion of this total remains in the country?
To solve this problem, it would be necessary to follow the track of each of the shares or bonds issued, in order to discover the destination of each; and this is what we shall attempt to do, with the help of the principal banking houses and the great commercial houses in financial relations with the outer world.
Although all estimates on such a subject must rest upon the slightest foundations, and cannot be accepted as precise statistics, we do not hesitate to give a few figures as an indication worthy of credence, being drawn from the best possible sources.
To proceed with due method, let us begin with the most
important division of the foreign capital invested in the Argentine, namely, English capital, which was the first to come from abroad to stimulate the progress of the country. According to an inventory made by the banking house of Tornquist & Co., which has willingly given us the information we required, the capital imported from England and invested in Argentine securities amounts to more than £290,000,000, distributed as follows:—
English Capital Invested in the Argentine.
| Capital. | Interest. | |
| Loans—Governmental, Provincial, Municipal | £63,854,643·8 | £3,046,598·2 |
| Railways | 166,360,683·2 | 8,049,431·8 |
| Banks | 7,862,400·0 | 705,096·0 |
| Agricultural Loans and Mortgages | 6,847,216·6 | 259,732·2 |
| Tramways | 20,284,705·6 | 875,603·8 |
| Electricity | 5,152,590·4 | 287,685·2 |
| Agriculture and stock-raising | 4,018,997·8 | 248,204·8 |
| Various investments | 14,729,708·8 | 785,986·4 |
| ——————— | —————— | |
| £291,110,946·0 | £14,258,338·4 | |
| ========== | ========= |
Thus this sum of £291,110,946 sterling represents an annual revenue of £14,258,338.
To continue: in seeking to find the true amount of the economic international balance, we should have to include in the inventory of English capital bound to the Argentine by commercial transactions the large number of steamers which run between British and Argentine ports, whose value might be represented by a sum not less than £10,000,000.