We know that the revenue of the bonds held by the English capitalists, including the sinking fund, amounts to £14,158,337. Again, the amount necessary to pay the interest on the bonds of the National Debt, cedulas, debentures, and shares held by French, German, and Belgian investors, may be estimated at £3,698,779; so that of the total revenue of £18,493,896 produced by the Republic, there remains in the country a balance of £4,287,820.
The Balance-sheet
Nothing is more difficult than to bring together the constituent elements of a national balance-sheet, on account of the complexity of the necessary facts which often escape the net of the statistician. Beginning with the most important elements of this balance, and, so it seems, the most plainly visible—those formed by the movement of exports and imports through the customs—and ending with the most insignificant facts, there are still a large number of factors for which it is impossible to allow.
Taking a broad view of the matter, we must first of all observe that the estimates by which we finally decide that that which leaves a country, whether in merchandise or in specie, is of greater value than that which enters it, are extremely arbitrary. The principal means of appreciation is the table drawn up by the Customs Administration upon cargoes leaving and entering the country, but the results drawn from this table are inevitably approximate. On the one hand the declarations upon which the valuations are based are always untrustworthy, as they are made by individuals who are interested in diminishing the actual values of their consignments. On the other hand, they are influenced by a thousand other circumstances which the customs cannot take into account, such as shipwrecks and unfortunate commercial transactions.
Moreover, merchandise exported is usually valued by the customs at the moment of leaving the port of embarkation; that is, when it has so far paid only very small sums for
carriage and transportation. Imported merchandise, on the other hand, is valued at the time of its disembarkation, in the ports of arrival or destination, when it is already burdened by all the expenses incident to a long voyage; such as freight, insurance, brokerage, etc.
It very often follows that in calculating the results of a given transaction, and in supposing, moreover, that the estimates are perfectly correct, we often find a perceptible difference between the comparative figures of exportation and importation, which must be settled (so it is often supposed) by a payment of cash, whereas in reality the whole transaction consists of a simple exchange of commercial products.[115]
[115] See Nouveau Dictionnaire d’Economie Politique, Article Balance du Commerce, by Georges Michel.
Besides these general causes of error in the calculation of the principal elements of the Argentine balance-sheet, there are others affecting the Argentine which we might call local, which arise from the manner in which the customs estimate the merchandise imported. We have seen that the Customs Administration bases the collection of duties upon a valuation tariff, the exaggerations of which have given rise to the liveliest complaints. As for the statistics of the exports of national produce, they are based upon the market prices.
As for the foreign capital invested in securities, etc., we know its value within a fair degree of approximation. But it is quite otherwise with the large masses of foreign capital employed or invested privately, whether in mortgages, commercial enterprises, urban or rural properties, or in a thousand other directions; we know neither the total amount nor the interest, nor profits which it produces. These profits are a permanent cause of uncertainty with respect to the establishment of the national balance-sheet.