From the men of this new generation one must ask no other love for the soil than that which is born of the profits they draw from it. They can move indifferently from north to south, from east to west; the soil for them is everywhere the same, provided the harvest be good. But, apart from that, they nevertheless love this land of promise, and interest makes them its children.
From this generation, whose principal traits we have noted, it seems that we may in the future expect great things.
To be sure, if the world were to return to its old ideal, that of glory or imperialism, we hardly know what place the Argentine would find in the scheme of things. It is unsuited to a military policy; it has no ambition to measure itself with neighbouring nations, which are far more eager for adventure.
But if we stand on the economic plane, the only one which interests us, we must allow that this generation is well armed for self-defence in every field of the commercial struggle. From the fusion of the Latin genius with the Anglo-Saxon energy has issued a new product, extremely capable in business, full of practical sense, and very open to progress, which will be fully able to hold its own in a century in which money is the great instrument of domination. This race, formed haphazard of immigration, is yet the very race for Argentine soil; between the two there is a correspondence, an adaptation, as perfect as if it were the result of long-continued design.
To sum up: the Argentine nationality appears to a foreigner under two distinct aspects; there is its political side, characterised by instability and lack of organisation, and the economic side, in which an intense national life and progress are manifested. Will this truly abnormal situation, containing both very bad and very good elements, perhaps, terminate favourably, making of the Argentine people not merely a rich, but also a great nation? Will the development of public affairs, left so far to the hazard of politics, even reach the plain of our economic development? Will the Argentine nation eliminate, under the pressure of material
progress, the leaven of anarchy left behind by a century of civil dissension? This is the secret of the future; this is the great achievement which remains to be accomplished in order to consolidate the present prosperity of the country.
In short, we must not lose sight of the fact that this prosperity has hitherto been less the work of man than of nature, which has been prodigal of her gifts to this fortunate land. This is a thought which has been expressed in a speech in the Argentine Senate, in which Senator Uriburu shows that Providence is always coming to the rescue by repairing the fault of the State.
“It is Providence,” he says, “which so opportunely sends us the rains to water our lands and to raise our marvellous crops; it is Providence that has given us the greatest Minister of Finance we have ever known, our fertile soil and our clear sky; the supreme Minister who looks after all our needs, who saves us from all difficulties, and who, despite our errors, continues to ensure the greatness of the Republic. Let man appropriate his work, but let him render unto Cæsar that which is Cæsar’s.”
And now if by some impossibility the situation were to change: if in spite of the enormous extension of cultivated lands a period of bad harvests were to follow the present period of fat cattle: would there not be reason to fear that the whole national edifice, founded as it is on prosperity, might become disintegrated, and crumble under the stroke of adversity? This is the peril we must indeed seek to avoid; it is for this reason that the intervention of a strong power seems necessary, in order to restrain the germs of evil brought by so many races, and to prevent the Argentine from falling back into the state of anarchy and revolution which for her is only a distant memory.
Taking even a more elevated standpoint, we may add that in order to amalgamate all the elements of immigration and to attach them to the country, through good and evil fortune, we need another solvent than personal interest or profit. To create a people it may suffice to give it a body, but to make it live it must also be given a soul, at whose breath the collectivity of individuals will be transformed into that moral unity which we call the nation. This is