The stock of saltpetre was calculated for the entire nitrate zone as of January 1, 1900, approximately as follows:
| Spanish Quintals | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Tarapacá | Private properties | 407,160,000 | |
| State properties | 165,888,513 | ||
| Total | 573,048,513 | ||
| Toco | Private properties | 138,112,000 | |
| State properties | 87,726,769 | ||
| Total | 225,838,769 | ||
| Aguas Blancas and Antofagasta | Private properties | 153,000,000 | |
| Taltal | Private properties | 151,984,500 | |
| Grand total of nitrates | 1,103,871,782 | ||
To this calculation should be added the nitrates which may exist in the pampas without having been discovered up to this time both in Tarapacá and in the districts of the South. In Tarapacá are the pampas of Orcoma, in which have been found layers of saltpetre of low grade, but which later may prove worth developing, though not while deposits of greater importance exist and while the present prices are maintained.
There are also deposits of saltpetre to the north of Pisagua in the pampas of Tacna, but in small quantity and in isolated beds.
Deducting the output from the time the calculation was made to 1905, the total would be 951,754,000 quintals then untouched. The nitrate fields which have not been reconnoitred have been estimated at 500,000,000 quintals, but that is rather a guess than a calculation. A safer assumption would be 300,000,000 quintals. The Antofagasta district has come up to expectations. Approximately, then, it may be said that in 1905 Chile had a nitrate reserve of a billion and a quarter (1,250,000,000) quintals of fertilizing material for the world’s needs. That is a prodigious quantity, but not an inexhaustible one. In the eleven years from 1894 to 1904 inclusive the exports increased at an average rate of 1,000,000 quintals annually. They were 23,947,000 in 1894; in 1904, 32,387,000 quintals.
The industry is in every sense a modern one, for it is controlled by a combination, or trust. This arrangement has one good feature: it insures reliable statistical data. The prospect as to production may be readily grasped when the explanation is made that the output for the year which ended with the first quarter of 1905 was placed at 36,000,000 Spanish quintals as against 32,387,000 the previous year. This means a direct revenue of $20,000,000 gold as long as the rate of production is maintained. A lowering of prices might cause the output to be lessened a few million pounds, but the world’s demand is steady enough to assume that for the present period these figures may stand substantially without change.
In the entire nitrate zone there are about 100 oficinas, or clarifying establishments. The original combination of the producers, or trust, was for five years, and began March 31, 1901. The amount of saltpetre which the oficinas may produce is fixed annually by a directorate. The exportation cannot be less than the previous year’s consumption.
If the rate of production fixed by the combination during recent years should be maintained without further change, there would remain 33 to 35 years more of nitrate exploitation on the present scale. Nothing, however, is more improbable. The product will be increased as rapidly as good prices can be obtained, and the experience of the last ten years has shown that the consumption grows fast enough to justify the larger output. No combination of producers can keep new capital from coming into the nitrate fields, for no vague fear of the future will be strong enough to cause the government to withdraw from rental for an indefinite period its nitrate properties. The new capital wants quick returns on the investment. It urges advertising, spending more money in the propaganda maintained to educate the world in the value of saltpetre as a fertilizer.
Against constant pressure for widening the market may come competition from artificial products, or new discoveries of nitrate fields in the desert of Sahara or in California that will terminate the monopoly of production and cause the export tax to be lowered. But while the profits might be lessened from some such cause, it does not follow that the production would be curtailed. It would the more likely be swollen. Expert opinion is that the existing oficinas could double their output. The profit which now accrues from an annual production of 35,000,000 or 36,000,000 quintals could be spread over 50,000,000 quintals and still show a margin of gain. Thus in any view the quantity of saltpetre extracted is likely to grow with each year, subject only to temporary checks or fluctuations.
Studied in every light, Chile’s Aladdin’s lamp flickers, for the life of the nitrate industry as a national wealth producer draws to a close. A third of a century to forty years reasonably may be fixed as the term of its existence. After that will remain the debris of the industry, and possibly before the beds approach exhaustion, irrigation will make the dead pampas blossom with the luxuriance of tropical agriculture, and the present sparse and artificially sustained population will be supplanted by populous farming communities.