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

by J. A. Hammerton

I do not doubt that if one had gone about, notebook in hand, collecting experiences from all sorts and conditions of people who had emigrated to the country, no end of “human interest” stories could have been obtained. Such as I came by, however, were the fruit of casual conversations, and the absence of the British and North Americans from the emigration movement was probably the reason why I did not study it in more than its broadest aspects. To follow it here in detail would involve so much in the way of comparative statistics, that I make no apology for touching the subject in the most sketchy, but I hope not unsuggestive, manner. I did receive, after leaving Buenos Ayres, some copies of the Herald containing a long and interesting correspondence, originated by an Englishman in Buenos Ayres, entitled “Is Argentina as Bright as it is Painted?” Some excellent letters were written by Britishers while the correspondence continued, and although the Mr. Q’s and Mr. F’s could not allow the occasion to pass without casting a stone at the unworthy land of their birth, the whole weight of opinion was in tune with what I have written. If anything, most of the writers went further, and some even piously called upon the Almighty to protect the wretched English workman whose lot it was to live in such places as Bahía Blanca and Rosario. Personally, I must confess that I have seen worse places to live in than Rosario, and even considerably worse than Bahía Blanca. I have been in Antofagasta!

But enough of the British in this connection, for they certainly do not amount to anything of real consequence in the sum total of Argentine immigration, the Americans to still less.[2] What is to be noticed, however, is a very distinct forward movement among the Germans. The German has come rather late in the day to discover the Britisher very thoroughly established in all branches of commerce throughout the Republic. But, undismayed, the German has set himself to the task of undermining British supremacy, laying his plans to capture a large share of future business. There is, of course, no comparison in sheer bulk between the German and the Italian immigration, as the number of Germans arriving in the Argentine in 1912 was only 4,337, (to which we might add 6,545 Austrians) against 165,662 Italians. But in the smaller Teutonic group lay greater money-making possibilities than in the Latin horde.

These Germans represent all classes of the community; there are quite a few titled Teutons engaged in business in Buenos Ayres to-day. They are developing their banking connection throughout the Republic with great energy; German manufacturers are establishing branches everywhere; German clerks are flooding into all sorts of businesses, their superior working qualities to the Spaniard, their readiness to accept the lowest wages that will support an existence, and their ability to acquire speedily the language of the country, being all sound reasons for the ready demand for their services. The competition of these German clerks will soon change the complexion of the office staffs of the railways, for they are even supplanting the British employees, and, if the cold truth must be told, they are really better employees. One seldom meets a German who cannot at least contrive to make himself understood in English, and who, although seldom speaking the Spanish language with grace or correct pronunciation, will not in a few months be able to converse in it with a fair degree of fluency.

In addition to those different classes of Teutonic invaders come the hand-workers—engineers, carpenters, builders, agricultural labourers. In considerable numbers these work people, who share the ability of their compatriots in the acquiring of languages, are filtering all over the Argentine and in certain districts of the southwest, especially around the celebrated Lake Nahuel Huapi, some thirteen hundred miles distant from the capital, there are entire settlements of German farmers, with their native school-teachers and Protestant missionaries. In fine, the Germanising of the Argentine has begun, and if it is still far from attaining the dimensions it has already assumed in Chili, I do not doubt that a day is coming when the German will have ousted the British, the French, and the Italian from their present supremacy in their respective fields, although never likely to compete with Britain or France in the matter of invested capital. At the time of writing, it is evident that there is a further movement to encourage German enterprise in the Argentine. I read in the London Times this morning that the Kaiser’s brother, Prince Henry of Prussia, accompanied by his Princess and suite, are sailing on an official visit to the Republic in one of the fine new passenger steamers with which the Germans are successfully competing against the British lines for South Atlantic trade.

It is not to be supposed, although I have emphasised the fact that the Italian immigration is essentially a movement of unskilled labour, that it is exclusively so. For the Argentine offers to the observer a very remarkable lesson in the industrial progress of Italy, which may entirely escape him in his travels in Italy itself. To encounter at every step, as one does wherever one goes throughout the Argentine, the most persistent evidences of Italian enterprise in every branch of commerce, is to discover the Italian in an entirely new light. Most of us are in the habit of going to Italy to look at old things, to revel in the glories of her past, and are apt to come away from Rome, or Florence, or Venice, and especially from Naples, with an impression of bygone grandeur and lingering poverty. It is true that we must set against this the evidence of her prosperity and modern activity, which we find in Milan and in Turin; but, on the whole, our popular notion of Italy is that of a country living mainly on its past.

The Italian in the Argentine will speedily dispel this. Not only does he supply the strong arms that are tilling the soil of countless leagues, but he maintains many of the great importing establishments in Buenos Ayres and the principal towns. Italian engineering agencies and workshops abound. A large proportion of the splendid motor cars that crowd the streets of the capital hail from Italy. Some of the finest chemists’ establishments are Italian. Not only are Italian workmen vastly in the majority on all building operations, but very often Italian brains are directing the whole undertaking; Italian contractors are paving the streets. In short, Italy stands forth in the life of the Argentine to-day as a magnificent industrial and commercial force, supported by the wide-spreading base of Italian emigrant labour.

There is also a very large traffic between the two countries in casual labour, ship-loads of Italians coming out each year for the harvest season—during which wages jump up from 40 to 50 pesos a month to 5 or 6 pesos a day—and return home immediately on its conclusion. The Italian steamers (the fastest that ply between Europe and South America, some of them doing the journey from Buenos Ayres to Genoa in twelve days, whereas the average of the English mail steamer from the River Plate to London or Liverpool takes nineteen to twenty-one days) provide special facilities for the shipment of these labourers at a very low head rate. To the remarkable return movement among Italian emigrants, on which I have already touched, this large element of casual labour has contributed not a little.

As regards the Spanish emigrant, I had many discussions with Spaniards settled in the Argentine, from which I gained a good deal more information than I had ever been able to acquire from any printed source. One of these gentlemen in particular had studied the question in five or six of the republics, and was engaged upon a book for circulation among his countrymen at home, putting the matter in a new light. In his estimation, the Argentine conditions represent an improvement for only the lowest class of Spaniard. This class of Spaniard I remember being very fully described in a leading article in La Prensa. His notions of thrift were there illustrated by his habit, when in his native country, of journeying about the countryside bare-footed, with his boots and stockings hung around his neck. When he approaches a village, he pauses by the roadside to put on his stockings and boots, and so shod traverses the village; but as soon as he has emerged on the highway again, he removes them and continues his journey with them around his neck once more! Such a custom touches the zero of social comfort and those habituated to it could scarcely fail to do better in almost any other country in the world.

According to my Spanish friend, such of his countrymen immediately become enthusiasts for the new land, and not only being able to go about permanently with their boots and stockings, but perhaps to buy a white collar for themselves and even a pair of silk stockings for their wives, feel they have suddenly made a magical transition into the very lap of luxury. But for the craftsmen, the village carpenter, the blacksmith, the modest tradesmen, he assured me the change was not always for the better. Spaniards of these classes can, thanks to the cheapness of commodities in their native country, and despite the lowness of wages, secure infinitely better household accommodation, and will eat better food, drink better wine, and altogether live a less strenuous and more satisfactory existence, than the majority, at least, will be doomed to maintain in the Argentine. As to all this, I can speak with no exact knowledge, and I do no more than report the opinion of a Spanish gentleman, confirmed to me, I may add, by several others of his race who ought to have been in positions to judge.

The gentleman in question was probably somewhat prejudiced, as he was a patriotic Spaniard, fond of elaborating his theory that Spain to-day had lost her head over the Argentine and was hastening her decay by orienting her literature and her journalism towards the lucrative market of South America instead of towards purely Spanish ideals. Looking to South America as a land of employment for her children, as in the past her kings had looked to it to fill their coffers, she was guilty of a crowning folly. If the energy she is pouring into South America were properly utilised at home, it would return far greater profit to the nation and the individual. Such, at least, was his line of reasoning, and I more than half suspect it was well based in fact.