The Argentine in the Twentieth Century

by Alberto B. Martínez; Maurice Lewandowski

a mistake, but a mistake of the period; an error which closed the whole continent to commerce, shut it away from the outer world, and maintained these masses of humanity in ignorance and isolation, in order to exploit them simply as a machine, or as an element of wealth for the service of their masters.

The problem which confronted the politicians of South America when they found themselves face to face with this new people, whom they must of necessity organise, was thus very different from, and far more difficult than the problem which the founders of the North American Union had to resolve.

These native masses obeyed with all their might and with the utmost enthusiasm so long as it was a question of fighting against the foreign troops and of winning their independence; but, victory once assured, guided by their leaders, the caudillos, most of whom were white, they revolted against the tendencies which began to show themselves among the Europeans of the cities, and in many places succeeded in dominating over them by force of numbers, thus preventing all political and administrative progress, and maintaining, as their form of government, the personal, arbitrary, and irresponsible power of a leader, that is, of the caudillo.

The written Constitutions which these people had established upon declaring their independence, and which were inspired by the Constitutions of the United States or the Swiss Republic, were thus reduced to a dead letter, as they were in complete contradiction to the political habits of the mass of the populace, and required, for their application, a political education which the peoples of South America did not possess. A whole century had to elapse before immigration, material interest, and the influence of civilisation, were able slowly to modify the political mentality of these peoples, by reinforcing and popularising the principles of government, extirpating the elements and suppressing the causes of the anarchy which had so long disturbed them.

Among the nations which experienced these beneficent influences, the Spanish colony known as the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata, to-day the Argentine Republic, was

quite specially favoured. Its territory, composed of immense prairies, the celebrated Argentine “pampas,” stretching from the sea-coast and the river littoral, offered the unique wealth of their fertility and their climate. There were no mines of gold or silver to arouse the greed of adventurers; they came to these regions only to traverse them, and so to proceed immediately to the gold-bearing regions of the distant Cordilleras.

Moreover, the first colonists who established themselves on the banks of the Plata, repulsed and expelled by the natives, were forced to abandon a certain number of cattle and horses, which found in these prairies an admirable opportunity to live and multiply in freedom, until finally they formed the immense herds of wild cattle and horses, whose hides became the principal wealth and the chief article of commerce of these regions.

Although the Rio de la Plata had no commercial relations with the outside world, and was only able to trade with Cadiz, the immensity and the solitude of its shores favoured a contraband trade; to such a degree that English, Dutch, and Portuguese smugglers came from all parts to exchange their manufactured articles for the hides of these wild herds.—This it is that explains how Buenos Ayres was able from the outset to become a great commercial centre, in which the trades dependent upon stock-raising quickly occupied the first place.

Commercial activity, the development of communication by sea, the fertility of the soil, the climate—all contributed from the early days of emancipation to attract European immigration. This immigration, like that which peopled the America of the north, was composed of families who came to settle, to form new homes, to labour. These families, following the example of their predecessors in the United States and for the same causes, did not mingle with the native tribes, but struggled against them, and forced them to abandon their lands and fly to the south, until at last, after a long and cruel struggle, they almost completely disappeared.

This immigration increased year by year, and to-day the great majority of the population of the Argentine Republic—a population now exceeding 5 millions—is of European origin.