If this be added to the sum already obtained, we find that the English capital invested in the Argentine or bound to the country by commercial ties is not less than £300,000,000: the revenue of which, estimated at an average of 6 per cent., represents a sum of £18,000,000 per annum, entirely paid out of the production and the economic forces of the Argentine.
To test the accuracy of this estimate we may mention that according to a conscientious study of English capital as placed in the principal countries of the globe, a study published in 1909 in the Economist, the sums invested in the Argentine
amount to £254,000,000: a figure not very different from that we have already given.
But let us be content for the moment to realise that the known inventoried revenue on bonds and shares belonging to British companies or British subjects residing or situated in England amounts to £14,000,000 after the deduction of the portion remaining in the hands of Englishmen residing in the Argentine; and in the presence of such figures let us meditate for a moment on the social and economic consequences of such a fact.
English capital, since the dawn of the organisation of Argentina, has been the great propulsive agent of all national progress. In 1822, when she was still insignificant both in riches and in population, Argentina knocked for the first time on the doors of British capitalists, asking them to lend a million pounds to be used for the construction of a harbour, for the instalment of waterworks in her capital, and for the foundation of cities; projects which were never executed; for it was with this loan as it was to be afterwards with many other Argentine loans. The funds demanded on credit were not employed to further the object for which they were solicited. After this first loan all other Argentine loans were subscribed by British capital.
Moreover, no industrial or commercial undertaking has been established in this country but it has gone to seek the breath of life in the financial houses of the City. Professor Eteocle Lorini said with reason, in commenting on this fact in his book, Il Debito Publico Argentino: “All the industrial, commercial, agricultural and mining companies which furnish our Argentine statistics bear the foreign mark, limited; so that one ends by getting the impression that one is studying a purely English colony, for one finds this limited upon all species of manufactures; limited after the statement of capitals; all undertakings are limited; insurance is limited; the circulation and distribution of Argentine wealth is limited.”
Whatever may be the importance of the limited company, it is by no means to the interest of the Argentine to declare war upon foreign capital; she should, on the contrary,
respect the far-seeing provisions of her Constitution, which imposes upon Congress the duty of encouraging the introduction of foreign capital conjointly with a foreign population, because both are vital elements of the national development and progress. But while we respect this tradition we feel that the Government should, in counteraction, endeavour to stimulate the application of Argentine capital to commercial or industrial enterprises, in order that the entire resources of the country shall not be developed for the sole profit of the foreigner.
Professor Lorini, whom we have just quoted, is of the same opinion. “We are certainly not of those,” he says, “who complain of the introduction of foreign capital. The more the latter is imported, the more it gives employment, and increases yet more the wealth and welfare of the country. But we must also add that as more capital arrives from without, so the payments which the country has to make for the use of it grow larger, and for this reason the whole financial policy of the Government and the Argentine should have as its object the introduction of the severest economy and the greatest possible thrift; not only that engagements contracted may be honourably met, but that in course of time we may form a national capital, capable of competing with foreign capital, of reducing its pretensions, and even of replacing it little by little, should the latter, for any reason whatsoever, be compelled to emigrate in virtue of causes foreign to the economic laws of the country.”
After England France stands in the first rank of those European nations which have had faith in the future of the Argentine, and have risked the investment of their capital in this young and wealthy state. Unhappily the total amount of French capital invested has not been augmented, as one might have hoped, by the political and commercial ties which for many years have united the two countries, or by the fertile opportunities which the Republic has to offer to the activity and enterprising spirit of the Latin races.