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

by J. A. Hammerton

The system on which the land is worked is also charged with danger to the social development of the community, and some day it, too, must give place to a better adjustment as between the owner and the worker. I have made frequent reference in previous chapters to the estancias, without entering into any detail as to the working of these great agricultural estates, which, curiously enough, are known by the Spanish word for a dwelling-house or a sitting-room (estancia in South America means either a farm, a country house, or the whole area of landed property under one ownership). Here, however, I must explain something of the peculiar methods of working these estates.

The owner himself will cultivate at his own cost a certain portion with alfalfa, wheat, maize, or linseed, as the case may be, and will maintain immense herds of cattle, sheep, and horses, according as he specialises in agriculture or in live-stock. But the estancias are usually much too large for their owners to develop to their full extent, and thus have grown up two methods of co-operation, neither of which has in it the germ of permanency, both being based on one man’s need and another’s opportunity. The one system is worked by the medieros, the other by the colonos. The mediero is a man who has come out from Spain or Italy with some tiny capital in his pocket that enables him to purchase certain agricultural implements, seeds, and probably to knock up a shanty of corrugated iron,—wood for building purposes being a highly priced commodity. But he cannot afford to purchase agricultural land in any locality where his crop would be of adequate value to him once he had raised it, for wherever the land is within reachable distance of a railway line, it is impossible to purchase it at anything like its actual market value, the method of the Argentine land-seller being invariably to demand the price which the land may be worth in ten or fifteen years. The land-vender takes “long views,” he is big with the future, so confident of it that he values his possessions of to-day at the dream prices of a somewhat distant morrow. Now, the mediero cannot come to grips with such as he, and cap in hand he approaches the estanciero, offering in return for the right to work so many acres of his land, to “go halves” with him in expenses and in profits—hence mediero, or “halver.”

The colono (colonist) is a genuine knight of the empty purse, with nothing to offer save his labour and that of his wife and children; but that is a great thing, and he is received with open arms throughout the length and breadth of the Argentine. The estanciero not only grants him as many acres of land as he may be able to work with his wife and family, but lends him cows for milk, horses for the plough, and through his almacén supplies to him on credit the necessary implements, seeds, and food, as well as corrugated iron and planks of wood for the building of his rancho. It should be explained that the almacén on every estancia is an important institution, a sort of universal provider for the hundreds of medieros and colonos who have taken up land on the estate, selling to them all sorts of commodities at a substantial profit to the estanciero. The “colonist” is now expected to labour incessantly on the land allotted to him, so that he may repay to the almacén the pretty heavy debt he has contracted there, while an agreed percentage of his crops will go to the owner of the estate.

These medieros and colonos include all nationalities, but are chiefly drawn from the Italian emigrants, the Spaniards being more commonly tradesmen. Everything looks couleur de rose to the poor toilers; they set about their task with high hope, a new feeling of freedom, little recking that they have tied themselves to a new serfdom by the bond of that initial debt with which they start. The mediero has a better chance than the colono of “turning the corner” soon, and it too often happens that the latter, after two or three years of incessant labour, has no more than cleared his feet, when comes a bad harvest, and he is back where he was at the beginning. Withered are his roses, poor fellow. Disgusted at the result, and hoping that a change to some other part of the country may turn out for the better, he disposes of the few things he owns, quits his “camp,” and shifts to some other quarter, perhaps only to repeat this chapter of his history.

Meanwhile, it will be seen the estanciero has had another corner of his estate brought into cultivation, its value considerably increased thereby, and the poor Italians have spent their strength for a bare subsistence. That many of them do succeed in earning some profit, especially those of the mediero class, and starting in some other business, is undeniable; but the roll of those who have turned over the soil of the Argentine and brought it into bearing to the great benefit of its owners, and their own non-success is, I am told, beyond reckoning. This, then, I submit, is no system that can endure. It carries its own seeds of decay. So long as the stream of immigration flows as steadily as of recent years, the system will doubtless continue, but a time will come when disappear it must, and some method of employment based on a fairer distribution of profits, or on adequate wages, take its place.

Apart from the ethics of the Argentine land system, which are clearly open to criticism, one can have nothing but praise for the manner in which emigration is officially encouraged, and the way in which the emigrants are handled on arrival at the River Plate. There is a fine saying reported of President Sáenz Peña when he represented his country at the Pan-American Congress in Washington on the occasion of the fourth centenary of the discovery of America. In the course of a speech he was making, some fervid Pan-American thought it a fit occasion to interject the watchword, “America for the Americans”! Quick as a flash Dr. Sáenz Peña retorted, “Yes, but Latin America for humanity!”

This certainly is the spirit that informs the policy of Argentine immigration. A hearty welcome is given to people of all races, whose only right of entry into this new land of promise is the possession of brawny muscles and the will to work. Every week they are arriving in ship-loads, and the manner in which these cargoes of humanity are received at the docks in Buenos Ayres and speedily transhipped by rail to different parts of the interior, according to the demand for brazos, is one of the most businesslike things the visitor will have an opportunity of noting in the public administration. Ship-load after ship-load of Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, and other nationalities arrives and melts away, absorbed into the thirsty country like water into sandy soil.

A “Rodeo,” or Round-up of Cattle in the Argentine Pampa.

During our stay, a splendidly equipped hostel, or shelter, was opened for the emigrants. Erected by the riverside close to the scene of their disembarkation, this building is capable of sheltering a large number of newcomers. Sleeping-rooms fitted with wire mattresses upon which the emigrants may place their own bedding (always the most precious of their personal possessions) are provided for the men, and similar accommodation for the women and children. There is no excuse for any of them to go unbathed, lavatories specially fitted with showers being provided for those who care to use them (the superintendent told me it was seldom that an emigrant ventured on such an experiment), while in the great common dining-room they may take their meals in comparative comfort and can secure eatables at a low rate. The accommodation, if I remember correctly, is free, and the whole place is so admirably clean that it must come with something like a shock to most of the emigrants who pass through it, habituated as they have been, almost without exception, to dirty ways of life in their native lands. Many of the emigrants never see Buenos Ayres at all, as the trains that take them into the Camp pick them up at a short distance from the vessels which have borne them oversea, and at the very doors of the shelter where they may have passed the night of arrival.