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

by J. A. Hammerton

In short, the pre-eminence of British goods, which I noted wherever I went, not only in the Argentine but throughout all South America, is in many respects undeserved. That pre-eminence is due to nothing but honesty and commercial integrity. The British manufacturer is, with few exceptions, an honest man, selling a good article at a reasonable price; he keeps his bargains, and fortunately for him palabra inglésa (the word of an Englishman) is honoured throughout Latin America. But the German, if he cares, can also make good articles, quite as good as the English, and many German firms are honourable exceptions to the rule I have mentioned above, so that once an importer has secured German goods which are as sound as the English and have been made to suit local requirements, the English manufacturer has met the most serious kind of competition.

I attribute a great deal of the indifference shown by British exporters to lack of proper representation on the spot. So long as the demand for every class of imported article continues as lively as it is at present, and the local agent can dispose of the stuff he receives without undue trouble, he does not worry about making his service more valuable to his clients by insisting on manufacturers doing their business in terms of the country. Meanwhile, one finds everywhere the most remarkable evidence of preference for British goods, British brands of tea, British preserves, pickles, sauces, sweets, British machinery, clothes, furniture, are everywhere in prominent use and demand. A good deal of this preference is also the natural result of British capital having been so largely used to develop the country,—they say locally “British money and Italian labour have made the Argentine”—but let me warn the British manufacturer that things cannot continue as they are indefinitely; this happy condition of demand exceeding supply will change, and meanwhile if he is making no serious effort to consider more carefully the needs of his customers and to render them better service, his astute German competitor will be “climbing upward in the night”!

While British and American exporters are not always represented as well as they might be in the South American market, there is yet another point for their consideration—are they properly staffed at home for dealing with this particular field? I believe that not a few have clerks in their foreign departments entirely ignorant of South American Geography, if the “howlers” they commit are any criterion. The ignorance which prevails in Great Britain in this connection is notorious, and from what I have been able to discover, general knowledge in the United States is no more advanced,—less if anything.

One example coming within my own experience will serve to illustrate what I mean. Staying at our hotel in Buenos Ayres was one of the managers of a very large British enterprise, with agents in different parts of North and South America. One of these was stationed at Punta Arenas, a considerable town in the far south of Chili, on the Straits of Magellan. It is the port for a vast country in which sheep farming has of recent years been making remarkable strides, and where wealth is growing rapidly. This gentleman chanced to be on his way to England, and made a break at Buenos Ayres to visit his superior at our hotel. Among the subjects discussed by them was the curious fact that for three years in succession the agent had received at Punta Arenas an account from the head office for goods supplied during the year to a certain Señor P——, whom he had failed entirely to trace. One evening, as the manager and the agent were scanning the list of hotel guests, the latter exclaimed “Why, there’s a Señor P——. I wonder if that might be the man I’m after?” Further inquiry proved that the gentleman in question was a well-known merchant from Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, whose business had brought him on a visit to Buenos Ayres, and that he was none other than the mysterious Mr. P—— whose accounts were regularly sent to Punta Arenas for collection. The point of the story is that while Punta Arenas is distant 1350 nautical miles, or a full four days’ steaming south of Buenos Ayres, Asunción lies 825 to the north of Buenos Ayres—another three to four days’ journey by rail and river,—but the export department of the English firm was so little versed in these matters that it selected its remotest agent to collect the debt! Punta Arenas and Asunción were both in South America, and that was enough to establish a connection! This is but one of many instances I could give to show the lack of geographical knowledge even among British firms trading with the country.

Manufacturers in the United States show a much more intelligent appreciation of the possibilities of Argentine trade than those of Great Britain, although the latter handle double the volume of business.[1] Various trade journals published in the Spanish language emanate from different parts of the United States and are circulated assiduously among these Latin Republics, though, I fear, so far with inadequate result. It is the misfortune of the United States that not a few of its citizens who have gone south in search of “Spanish gold” have not always been noted for their business rectitude. The result is that while palabra inglésa has become an accepted phrase in the language of the country, so has yanqui bluff, which may be said to stand for any sort of crookedness. There are, of course, as I shall have to point out further on, other reasons of a political nature which tend to make the South American at once jealous and suspicious of North Americans, and against these influences it is the duty of all good business men in the United States wishful to extend the market for their national products, to fight incessantly, making special efforts to show to the business man of the southern continent that they are actuated by nothing but the strongest desire to cultivate a friendly commercial intercourse and an increasing exchange of commodities between the North and the South. At the present time, the United States is the chief source of supply for office furniture, typewriters, cash registers, and also competes with considerable success in the market for agricultural machinery. But in all these directions, and especially the last-named, there is enormous room for expansion.

Here is another aspect of business life that calls for the careful consideration of all who are ambitious of securing a share of the profits that await the seller in these lively markets of the south. The natural prosperity of the country is considerably exaggerated owing to the ease with which it has been able to borrow from Europe, and these heavy borrowings have led to general extravagance, raising the sense of prosperity beyond what is justified by intrinsic values. I do not suggest for one moment that borrowing has vastly exceeded the potentialities of the country, but I do assert that it has anticipated these potentialities, and to that extent discounted future development. The possibilities of the Argentine are colossal, and its power of recuperation after the severest trials, such as ruined harvests or destruction of cattle and sheep through drought, amazing. In this connection, it is unnecessary to say more than that in one single summer the country has suffered the loss of several million sheep owing to a prolonged drought, without the community as a whole being conscious of any financial strain from so great a destruction of capital. The British makers of sheep-dip, however, would probably suffer a decrease of some thousands of pounds in their exports to the Argentine that year, and British wool-buyers who swarm over to the River Plate each year, would have to pay a great deal more for their purchases, owing to the shortage of supply.

Fields of Maize.

It is said the profits of a single harvest have repaid the cost of the land.