The real Argentine: Notes and Impressions of a Year in the Argentine and Uruguay

by J. A. Hammerton

In short, there is no necessity or luxury of life for which one has not to pay many times more in Buenos Ayres or in Montevideo than in any North American or European city. Every instance I have taken from my personal experience, and beyond these there are doubtless hundreds of examples quite as remarkable, or perhaps still more noteworthy, for various newcomers with whom I came into touch, who were settling in the city and under the necessity of furnishing flats or houses, were uniformly aghast at the prices they were asked to pay for the most modest items of furniture, while house rents would have turned a Fifth Avenue landlord green with envy. I had personally to buy many items of office furniture, the prices of which I do not recall, with the exception of a polished oak table of North American manufacture, which in London would not have fetched more than $15, but which cost me exactly $70. I also remember that a none-too-ostentatious writing-desk of similar origin cost me upwards of $125.

Terminus of the Southern Railway at Plaza Constitucion, Buenos Ayres.

No wonder such conditions of life should be pressing heavily on the resident population, with whom la carestía de la vida has become an all-absorbing topic of conversation. During my stay, as I have already mentioned, a strong movement was initiated by the popular journal La Argentina, in the hope of bringing about some easing of the terrible burden, with what ultimate success I know not. But it is interesting to quote here a few passages from the leading English daily (the Standard), which, like all the Buenos Ayres journals, native and foreign alike, is seldom severely critical of the economic conditions of the country, being, I suppose, nervously afraid of saying anything that might place the Argentine in an unfavourable light to foreign critics:

For some years past the Press has been urging upon the National and Municipal authorities the necessity of adopting measures for improving the condition of the working-classes by reducing the cost of the necessaries of life and by providing convenient and hygienic dwellings for workmen and their families, but hitherto, the people having remained patiently submissive to the economic state of things which counteracts the higher remuneration obtainable for labour, the authorities have failed in their duties to promote, to the utmost of their power, the well-being of the mass of the population of this great city. Congress has voted lavishly the resources for the embellishment of the city, for the construction of monumental buildings and monuments, for the acquisition of useless warships, for the granting of hundreds of pensions to persons who have no claim to public charity, for the sending of representatives to congresses held in foreign countries upon subjects in which this Republic is not interested, and special embassies and commissions under different excuses, to enable favoured individuals to make the tour of Europe with their families at the expense of the public, but there is never any surplus revenue to permit the diminution of the duties and taxes which weigh most heavily upon the shoulders least able to bear the burden....

The place of meeting was in the Congress plaza, to which, in spite of the threatening state of the weather, the people flowed from all parts of the city and suburbs, and at the appointed time marched in orderly procession to the Plaza Mayo. A deputation, headed by Mr. Adrian Patroni, a member of the staff of La Argentina, was received in the Government House by the Minister of Finance, Dr. Perez, who was accompanied by his private secretary and by the Administrator of the Custom House. Mr. Patroni presented to the Minister a petition, together with numerous lists of thousands of signatures in support of the petition, which asks, among other things, for the reduction of the import duties on the necessaries of life; for a diminution of the cost of transport of articles of general consumption; for the erection of 10,000 houses for workmen and their families; for the grant of sufficient funds for paving all the streets of the suburbs in order to give work to the unemployed as well as to improve the hygiene of the city; for the prohibition of races on working days, and for the closing of the hippodromes (race-courses) within five years....

Numbers of people in the procession carried placards upon which were inscribed the requirements of the proletariat, including, besides those mentioned in the petition, demands for the concession of the public land, with facilities for the payment of the same, to those who are willing to cultivate it; for personal security for all the inhabitants of the provinces and territories; for the improvement of the roads; for the suppression of trusts and monopolies; for severe legislation against usury; for regulations of the auctioneers’ profession; for issuing bonds for 100,000,000 pesos for pavement in the suburbs; for the reduction of license taxes on the vendors of articles of consumption; for establishing free fairs in all sections of the municipality; for permission to introduce the carcasses of animals slaughtered outside the boundaries of the Municipality.

Now what is the reason for this extraordinary expense of living? It is not a matter that can be explained in a few sentences, so many factors are at work to make the conditions what they are. I can at most throw a beam of light on several of these factors. Visitors are astonished, for instance, to be told that in a country popularly supposed to be one of the most naturally fruitful in the world (though there is no greater illusion), that the commonest fruits which in North America and Europe are within the reach of the very poorest, are only to be enjoyed in Buenos Ayres by the rich. The country is almost destitute of native fruit-bearing trees; it is naturally a treeless, bushless, wilderness of rich, loamy soil, capable of producing enormous crops of grain if properly cultivated, or of maintaining almost fabulous herds of cattle. The contents of the orchards and vineyards that do exist must be reckoned as exotics. Few people, indeed, seem to trouble about the cultivation of fruit or vegetables, though the vineyards round about Mendoza on the Andine frontier, and Bahía Blanca in the south of the Province of Buenos Ayres, show what unlimited possibilities the soil possesses for the vine. Cattle and grain have occupied (and not unnaturally) the energies of the agriculturists, but fruit-growing has been comparatively neglected. Even so, it has fallen into the hands of a vicious “ring,” who, adopting the worst of North American methods, have set themselves to exploit the public. In the islands of the Tigre, at carting distance from Buenos Ayres, where fruit and to spare could be grown to supply the needs of the capital; and across the river, in Uruguay, where there are ideal conditions for fruit culture, and where peaches, pears, apples, and other fruits are almost as plentiful as blackberries; this ring has seized control, and I have been told that thousands of tons of peaches and other fruit have been thrown into the river in a single season rather than that the harvest, by its natural abundance, should have been permitted to lower the market prices.

A successful English fruit-grower, attracted by the possibilities of Buenos Ayres and the crying need for supplies, came out to study the situation, and found that although he could easily have secured ideal orchard land, and could have raised enormous crops of apples, pears, peaches, and all sorts of table fruits, he would have been powerless to have brought his products to the market in face of this sinister ring. He, therefore, abandoned the project and returned to England. Thus, within walking distance of orchards laden with peaches, it would cost you 6 cts. for one, and in Montevideo the conditions are more outrageous still, as during our summer there we bought hundreds of Californian apples at a cost of from 16 cts. to 25 cts. each, the local product, at best inferior to the imported, and nearly as expensive, being then inaccessible.