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

by J. A. Hammerton

In connection with Mr. Z., I mentioned the fact of his honesty, which, it goes without saying, applies equally to Mr. X. and Mr. Y. Here we touch one of the most important matters in the business life of South America. Honesty is a quality that does not bulk unduly in South American character. Having had peculiar opportunities of testing the honesty of the general public throughout the Argentine, Uruguay, and Chili, and having listened to all sorts of local and foreign stories about the shameless disregard for the ordinary usages of decent straight-forward business said to be characteristic of one country more than another, I am persuaded that there is little to choose in this matter between South Americans in general, if we exclude the Indians and mestizos, or half-breeds. In Buenos Ayres it takes very little searching indeed to discover Englishmen as dishonest and unworthy of trust as any scoundrelly native. Nay, I am not at all sure that worthless English emigrants and English-speaking porteños—children born of English parents in the Argentine, who speak both languages equally well—cannot give most of the tricky natives and unscrupulous foreigners a strong lead in the matter of dishonesty.

Individually, I found among the native population a very high percentage of men of the strictest commercial integrity, men who were caballeros correctísimos, not merely in the formal sense of the phrase, but in actuality. At the same time, I am forced to confess that there is something in the atmosphere of Buenos Ayres which seems to depreciate the importance of business rectitude. Ask me to describe this with any definiteness, and I am afraid I should fail, but the fact remains that one is conscious of the feeling every day and in every business relationship. It may be the influence of old tradition, the result of the Argentine capital having been for so long the resort of all sorts of foreign criminals and justice-bilkers, as much as the experience of business men in their dealings with Buenos Ayres houses to-day. But whatever the extent or reality of this commercial dishonesty may be, it is a factor to be reckoned with, and in all negotiations with commercial houses it is no doubt well to look carefully at their references if their credentials are unknown. A procurador, or attorney, for instance, who was employed very successfully in connection with certain legal matters that came under my notice, and who did his work so well and so profitably to those who feed him that it was suggested to establish in other parts of the country similar connections for the recovery of debts, said to his clients, “Unfortunately, I know of no other honest procurador in the Argentine with whom I could co-operate in carrying out your suggestion”! The gentleman who reported the matter to me stated that he entirely believed his attorney spoke the truth as to the lack of honest lawyers, and he even had his doubts about him! But how can we expect the legal fraternity to be shiningly honest when we know that justice is poisoned at its source; that the Argentine Law Courts have nothing to learn and can probably teach even Tammany something new in chicanery?

Let me give but one instance of how justice is administered. A young Spaniard, one of many employed in a certain undertaking in which I was interested, had to be discharged for dishonesty. He was an attractive, gentlemanly young man, with tastes beyond his means,—which is all that needs to be said of nine-tenths of the swindlers in Buenos Ayres. Discharged for dishonesty, he was immediately admitted as a clerk in—of all places in the world—a very prosperous bank! Within six weeks of his admission to the bank, he contrived to steal some $3500, a portion of which went to wipe out gambling debts, some $1500 he sent to Spain, and the remainder, nearly $1000, he lodged in another bank. Arrested, he was so conscious of the absolute proof of his guilt, that he signed a statement written by his own lawyer admitting the whole matter, hoping thus to be clemently dealt with. The case came before a young judge who took a personal liking to the prisoner, and deliberately made up his mind to discharge him. This seemed a difficult thing to do in face of the signed confession.

Among the witnesses called was the gentleman who had discharged him for dishonesty prior to his being admitted to the bank. This gentleman was called because the prisoner had given his name as that of his previous employer. The only question the judge would allow the witness to answer was “When in your employment did the prisoner strike you as a person who would be likely to have committed this forgery in the bank?” The witness, having no wish to force the prisoner into jail, answered “No.” The judge then asked the prisoner whether, in view of the fact that his alleged confession was written by a third person and only signed by him, he had been fully conscious of what that document contained, and whether he realised precisely the gravity of the admissions therein. The prisoner seemed somewhat bewildered as to how he should reply, and, not quite realising that the judge had actually turned himself into advocate for the defence, seemed on the point of committing himself by accepting full responsibility, when the judge, silencing him and whispering with the clerk for a few moments, asked the prisoner not to answer until he had consulted with his lawyer. The clerk of the court withdrew, with a sign to the prisoner’s lawyer, who, also leaving the court, returned presently and whispered a few words to the prisoner.

The forger was then asked by the judge to state exactly how the confession had been secured. Now, nothing loath, he brazenly asserted that he had signed it most unwillingly, not realising how it incriminated him, and so forth. Result: prisoner not only discharged, who, according to the law of the land could have been put in jail for three years, but by an order of court, the money which he had stolen from one bank and lodged in another, and which had meanwhile been arrested by the court, restored to him!

Is it surprising, in face of an experience such as this, that the business world teems with minor employees who have been guilty of all sorts of thefts and dishonest practices, but whom employers have not prosecuted because conviction is so difficult to secure and legal expenses are so heavy? A friend of mine who was robbed of $4000 by an employee, who forged his signature and imperilled his credit in various directions, spent so much time and money in endeavouring to secure the conviction of the wrongdoer that he eventually gave up the struggle and left him to be liberated from the jail where he had lain for some seven or eight months without a trial.

Here, then, is probably the real reason of this feeling of low business morality which undoubtedly does prevail in Buenos Ayres—the laxity of the law and the difficulty of securing justice. A further example and one of very recent date will serve to show to what extent audacity attains in the commercial world of Buenos Ayres. A cinematograph company secured at great cost from a European firm the exclusive right to reproduce an important film throughout the Argentine, Uruguay and Chili. In due course the film arrived, and was placed with a firm of photographic experts to make a number of copies for despatching to the various centres where it was to be exhibited, and where the exclusive nature of the exhibition was already being loudly trumpeted in the press. Those entrusted with the making of the copies did not hesitate to multiply the number by a dozen or more, and to sell them at high prices to competitive theatres. In this delightfully simple way, instead of one theatre in one town being able, as it had announced, to give the exclusive exhibition of the film, some eight or ten theatres were showing their unauthorised copies of it on the same evening.

Confronted with such facts, it is hardly a matter for surprise that many foreign merchants look upon Argentine transactions with suspicious eye, exacting conditions of payment that are more rigorous than apply in other quarters of the mercantile world. In the United States, I believe, and in England certainly, this feeling of insecurity does exist, and exporters are usually chary of entering into negotiations with unproved houses in Buenos Ayres. Then, again, it is so difficult to find local representatives of strict integrity that many large firms who have made efforts to open up business out there have eventually given up the task, one well-known maker of a very profitable line of stationery goods, for which there is a large demand in Buenos Ayres, confessing to me that over a period of years each arrangement he had made for local representation had eventually fallen through, owing to the slackness or dishonesty of his agents.

It is a lamentable fact that the general laxity of business morals has the effect of developing in clever men their roguish propensities, with the consequence that I have noticed all too often when the assistance obtainable in Buenos Ayres has been undeniably competent as regards intelligence and resource, it has failed in the matter of honesty, and, inversely, where honesty has been beyond suspicion, these other desirable qualities have been lacking. And thus we have employers deliberately, with eyes open, utilising the services of persons whom they distrust and whom they know to be capable of swindling whenever opportunity serves, simply because their other abilities are essential to the creation or extension of the business in hand. The atmosphere of suspicion thus engendered, and the high standard of incompetency in almost every branch of service, are two factors that must enter into the serious consideration of all engaging in the business life of the country.

I could describe at least a dozen individuals with whom, during my eight months in Buenos Ayres, I came into touch, all persons of the most obvious capacity and worthy of employment, had that capacity been wisely directed, but each, on close investigation, so tainted with suspicion of trickery and trailing behind him an inglorious record, that it was impossible to utilise his services. One person in particular, with whom I almost entered into an important literary venture, whose scholarly attainments were unquestionable, and who, at first, seemed a thorough gentleman, had, as I subsequently discovered, served three terms in provincial penitentiaries, and had even been guilty of attempted murder, which crime he had planned purely and simply for business ends, with a view to “putting away” a gentleman whom he and another had swindled to the extent of nearly $5000, and who was proving inconsiderate enough to invoke the law against the swindlers. This person, whose portrait and finger marks are duly filed in the Criminal Bureau of Buenos Ayres—where, by the way, the system of thumb prints originated—had, during his various encounters with the law, become intimate with a comisario, who, prior to entering the police service, had himself been a successful criminal, and continued, not unsuccessfully, his criminal career in his new capacity. With the aid of this official, the “liter’y gent” was able to defeat the ends of justice, and for aught I know is still busy under police protection fleecing new victims in or about Calle Florida.