Now, if we place side by side the Debit and Credit of the nation’s economic balance account, we shall find that in the year 1908 there was a favourable balance of not less than £3,000,000.
It is undeniable that this favourable balance has in fact been obtained, not only in 1908 but also in previous years, for there exist two irrefragable proofs of the fact: the rates of international exchange, always favourable to the Argentine, and the uninterrupted stream of metallic currency which flows towards the Rio de la Plata. “The state of exchange,” as Goschen has said in his work on the subject, “offers us the means of ascertaining not only the state of the commercial atmosphere, by indicating the proximity of disturbing currents, but it also indicates them in such a manner that by interpreting them carefully, we may choose
the line of conduct to be followed in order to steer clear of danger, and to avoid the precipitate results of panic.”[116]
[116] C. I. Goschen, Theory of Foreign Exchanges.
“The attentive observation of exchanges,” says the economist Foville, confirming by these words the assertion of the expert just cited, “suffices to indicate to the minds of those competent whether the monetary stock of a country is in process of increasing, or whether, on the contrary, there is an escape of currency towards the outer world. Exchange tells us in which direction bullion is being attracted, at a given moment, just as the weathercock tells us the direction of the wind.”[117]
[117] See in the Bulletin de l’Institut International de Statistique, Vol. XV., 1906, p. 200: Les Eléments de la balance économique des peuples, by A. de Foville.
Now if we examine the table showing the international variations of exchange during the last five years we shall find that the latter are on the whole high above par; in December 1906 and January 1907 especially they attained considerable figures which have never since been surpassed.
As for the importation of bullion and the visible existence of gold in the country, it will serve our purpose to know that according to the official figures there was on the 31st of December 1907 a total of £29,060,000 in the country, which was distributed as follows: £21,020,000 in the Caisse de Conversion, and £8,040,000 in the various banks, including the Conversion Funds. A year later, on the 31st of December 1908, these figures attained a total of £34,860,000, of which £25,340,000 was in the Caisse, and £9,520,000 in the various banks. But in the course of the year 1909 this upward movement has been even more evident, since the total amount of gold in the Republic on the 1st of November 1909 was no less than £53,800,000, of which £34,800,000 was in the Caisse and £19,200,000 in the banks or the Conversion Fund. It is already therefore certain, if we are to judge by the important consignments of gold actually on the way to the Argentine, that by the end of 1909 the Republic will possess metallic funds to the amount of at least £56,000,000.
We have seen what a part foreign capital has taken in realising the economic value of the Argentine and the influence it has exerted in developing the country. It
is employed in the greatest variety of ways: in State loans, railways, and every branch of industry. To it we owe harbours and railways; that is, the principal factors of economic wealth; it is foreign capital, invested in navigation companies, which puts the Argentine in touch with all the nations which consume her products.