Thus figures which are easily available through the patriotic ability and industry of Dr. Francisco Latzina, the chief of the National Argentine Statistical Department, and so clearly and strikingly digested by Señor Ricardo Pillado, the Director of the Division of Commerce and Industry in the Argentine Ministry of Agriculture, a Ministry the scope of whose work is extremely wide and all-important in the Republic, have really yet no counterparts in Uruguay, where one is rather left to guess at the general effect of such isolated agricultural trade statistics as alone are immediately available. Figures are to be had by the private courtesy of individuals connected with various administrations, and these, if not exact, are no doubt approximately so; but they do not bear the stamp nor the proof of comparison which should be found in authoritative figures.
The author knows from the test of his own previous experience that such few figures as he has given concerning Uruguay are substantially correct, and must therefore, though reluctantly, ask the reader to take his word for it that they are so.
CHAPTER II
THE WAR
ITS PRESENT AND PROBABLE FUTURE EFFECTS ON ARGENTINA AND URUGUAY
As has been indicated elsewhere in these pages, the shock of the commencement of the Great War found the River Plate Republics already in a condition of considerable local depression. This was owing to relatively poor harvests, due to a long continuance of exceptional and ill-timed rains; a consequent collapse of land speculation and the usually sinister effects of slump after a long period of boom; and the condition of money markets, for some time past disturbed by the fear of the results of political complications in the Balkans.
The Governments of Argentina and Uruguay must be most warmly congratulated on the vigour and promptitude with which they faced the fact that, with the declaration of war in Europe, they were suddenly left to their own resources to an extent they had never experienced during the few decades which really form the whole period of their true economic history.
Lucky it was for Argentina that such a veteran statesman as Dr. Victorino de la Plaza occupied the Presidential chair, and that he had the aid of a man of such high intelligence and reputation as Dr. Carbó as Minister of Finance; fortunate also for Uruguay in having Dr. Viera (since elected President) at the head of her Ministry of Finance.
Honour is also due to the Officials of the State Banks of both nations and to the private Banks and financiers who lent such an untiring and efficacious aid to both Governments in the hour of pardonable alarm; alarm which was prevented from developing into panic by the prompt and statesmanlike measures adopted.
Really, as Mr. C. A. Tornquist justly observes in an article cited in these pages, it cannot be said that a “crisis” exists in a country while its vital forces are in full development.