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

by J. A. Hammerton

The young men drafted out from England for employment in these banks are, I imagine, of a somewhat better social status and also better paid than the ruck of the railways employees. In contrast with the conditions of service and remuneration at home, the bank clerk in the Argentine certainly does seem to better his position somewhat, or, more correctly, he attains advancement earlier than he would at home. He is, on the other hand, doomed to a long and probably permanent exile, as there seems little disposition on the part of the home offices to find openings in London for any of their employees once they have become accustomed to the work and life of South America. This is probably one of the reasons why the British banking community throughout the country appears to be very settled in its character, the constant shifting, so unsatisfactory a feature of the clerical staffs of the railways, not being a characteristic of the financial fraternity. Then, the business of the banker, bringing him into direct touch with the public, imposes upon all those anxious to progress therein, the necessity of acquiring the language of the country, whereas the railway clerk, beyond a string of technical words used in his bookkeeping, may never find any need for it, and rarely indeed does an Englishman (and here I must bracket the American with him) make any attempt to learn the language unless under pressure of circumstances. This is another of the reasons for the superiority of the banking clerk over the railway clerk, as it will be found that the intelligent Englishman who has acquired a good command of the language, with whatever object in view, always holds a position superior to his fellow countryman who has not done so, or he is at least likely to outstrip him in the long run.

A third element in the making of the British colony are the “Cable boys.” The various cable companies are all served by very young men, who among Britishers abroad probably bear away the bell for their unlimited power of “swanking.” It is altogether delightful to pass an hour or two in the company of some of these breezy youths. They leave you with the impression that the whole modern civilisation has been moulded by men of their kidney. They talk about their work with a zest that no mere banker, engineer, journalist, or architect could possibly impart to his humbler calling. They call it “The Service,” and to hear a group of them discussing the personalities of their great men in charge of branch offices at fabulous salaries of £5 to £6 a week, is most refreshing to the wearied man of affairs.

Often have I watched and frequently had intercourse with these glorious youths, of whose romantic existence I had only the haziest notions until I went a-travelling in South America, and they always contrived to make me feel something of a worm for not having dedicated such abilities as I possess to “The Service.” Yet there is a pathetic side to them and their work. The Cable Service and Wireless Telegraphy are two potent snares for the youth of our time. It really requires a very modest supply of grey matter in the cranium to discharge the duties of either, and a young man of twenty is as good a cable operator as he will be at forty, and probably better than he will be at fifty. Few are they who can hope to rise to the more responsible managerial positions. The bulk of them grow up into disillusioned, underpaid, and aimless men. It is a service for youths, in which they quickly attain proficiency, and what, for youth, is a substantial wage; but “soon ripe, soon rot.” So that whenever I came in touch with those swaggering “boys,” I used to see hovering behind them shadowy figures with grey, sad faces, and did not grudge them their swanking days.

Yet another of the constituents of the “colony” is furnished from the ranks of the commission agents and local representatives of our exporting firms. Many of the large manufacturing firms maintain their own offices and staffs under the management of able assistants who have been trained at home, while many more are content to be represented on a commission basis by agents, who are their own masters and handle the business of several firms whose interests do not clash. Among these will be found not a few of the most prosperous members of the British community, men of self-reliance, initiative, individuality. There are also to be considered in this connection, though the bond that binds them to the British colony is ever loosening, fellow countrymen who have permanently established themselves as local tradesmen, conducting every variety of business, such as chemist, draper, grocer, jeweller, bootseller, furniture dealer, bookseller, and so forth. In all parts of Buenos Ayres, and in a lesser degree in the larger towns of the country, the wanderer will note familiar British names over shop windows, often with the Christian name in Spanish, Juan for John, Diego for James, and so on. It is a fair assumption that when the English tradesman has taken to use the Spanish form, he intends to strike his roots deep into the new soil. His children will become more Argentine than British, and theirs British not at all.

But perhaps the most important, and I suspect the most substantial of the British community who have made their homes in this Land of Fortune are those of the estanciero class. It is true that the wealthiest of them cannot be compared on a mere money basis with the wealthier natives, who have seen their landed properties increase some hundred times in value in the last forty years, whereas most English estancieros had to buy their holdings after the upward movement began. Many of them carry on farming on what, compared with the average conditions in their native land, is a baronial scale, and as a rule they seem to be pleased with their lot and happy in the country of their adoption. They are frequent visitors to Buenos Ayres, and flock there, particularly at the time of the Agricultural Show, when their womenfolk vie with each other in the display of their latest hats and dresses. Included among the agricultural class are many highly paid managers, usually Englishmen of good education and organising ability, who conduct the intricate affairs of large estancias either for private owners or for public companies.

It is impossible, of course, to give in complete detail an analysis of the British colony, and all that I have attempted has been to suggest very roughly the classes that go to its composition. It will be seen that it is first and last a purely commercial community. In no sense is it a replica of society as one knows it in England. Every member of it is there to make money, and by the extent to which he is succeeding does he stand in the estimation of the community. It could not be otherwise. It is true there are British schools with British instructors, British churches—a pro-Cathedral among them—with clergymen, Nonconformist pastors, and Irish priests, societies for literary discussion, British clubs, charities, hospitals, missions to seamen, Salvation Army workers, and amateur theatrical societies; but the fact remains that it is in the very fibre of its being a business community, where commercial standing takes precedence of most other considerations.

At the same time, I found ample evidence in the British colony of a desire to approximate more nearly to the social observations of the homeland, to look more closely at the credentials of newcomers before taking them to its bosom. In the early days, Buenos Ayres was one of the many dumping places for wastrels, and the colonial freedom which accepted everybody at his face value produced an inevitable mixture of sorts, so that not rarely did Britishers of dubious antecedents manage to secure a wife among the daughters of some prosperous British resident. It is well-known that the daughters of these families even still have great difficulty in finding suitable husbands of their own class, and during our stay I confess I saw sufficient of the British community to have made me extremely careful, had I intended to settle in the town, in the choice of my friends. There is in all this nothing that reflects upon the worthier elements of the community; it is the inevitable outcome of peculiar conditions, and rather than finding much to censure, one may discover a great deal to commend in the life of these exiles. That it is provincial to a degree is scarcely surprising, and that it is productive of much genuine friendship, sympathy, mutual helpfulness, is due to the generous British nature on which it is based.

Its class distinctions are being emphasised, and not before time. At first blush one might be repelled by what seemed the pettiness of its interests, the little corroding jealousies, its snobbishness, but the last mentioned is at bottom a praiseworthy effort to raise the social level beyond that obtaining with the indiscriminate mixing of good and bad which characterised the earlier life of the community. The pettiness is inescapable. A country town in England would probably provide no more gossip and scandal than any British community several times its size in a foreign land.

A nursery governess comes out to Buenos Ayres and stays at the by-no-means-luxurious headquarters of the Y.W.C.A. until she finds a job. She will probably be back there frequently in the periods between her various posts, as she will have many changes before she is “suited.” Eventually she will meet some decent, lonely Englishman, managing an estancia a day or two’s journey away in the Camp. They will get married, and make a brave show of it at the Y.W.C.A., and next day the Standard will publish a column describing the great event, with the list of presents spaced out in single lines. Need one be surprised if the nursery governess suddenly finds herself something of a snob? She will immediately “put on airs,” and on her visits to the capital with her husband she will ruffle it for a day or two in the smartest of new dresses and the biggest of hats, just to advertise the agreeable fact that they are “getting on.”

Marriage possibilities form the favourite gossip of the community, and the Standard even publishes copies of invitations that have been sent out by the most ordinary members of the community, introducing them with the words “The following wedding invitations are now in circulation.” The most vital crisis in European affairs will receive less space than the wedding of John Jones and Mary Smith. The favourite paper of the community teems daily with the most trivial personalities, even the social movements of a railway clerk not being deemed unworthy of record. The lack of entertainment causes amateur theatricals to flourish, and the English papers will “spread themselves” on a three or four column criticism of the most ordinary amateurish production of, say, “The Count of Luxembourg,” while there will not be lacking foolish people to assert that the amateur production was in every respect finer than anything that could be seen in the principal London theatres. There are two or three of these dramatic societies with long rolls of membership, and the performances are given in the regular theatres some half-a-dozen times per annum, these functions being admirable occasions for the display of new toilettes on the part of the ladies of the audience, and an airing for the gentlemen’s swallow-tails.