The Amazing Argentine: A New Land of Enterprise

by John Foster Fraser

That there is foot-and-mouth disease in Argentina is undoubted. Though the Argentines protest we continue the cry as an excuse for keeping out their stock from our meadows and from competing with our own fresh meat, I was quite convinced that the disease does seriously exist in Argentina, and that, whilst not so prevalent as occasionally alleged, it is sufficiently bad to justify the British Board of Agriculture in maintaining the prohibition. With care, however, I am sure the Argentines could stamp out the evil. Its persistence is due to carelessness. The natural conditions of the cattle, being out on the pastures all the year round, count for healthiness. I have visited the great canned meat establishments in Chicago, and when in Buenos Aires and La Plata I inspected some of the biggest of the Argentine freezing places. Though the latter lacked the magnitude of the Chicago houses, I admit my complete satisfaction with the sanitary conditions surrounding what, to me, is always a sickening business.

When a mob of cattle has been purchased the seller gives a guarantee of the soundness of the animals. When they reach the stock-yard the veterinary surgeon of the company makes inspection of each beast before it goes to the slaughter-house. The operation is the usual one: the animal is pole-axed, then the carcase is conveyed on a truck to a shed, where it is hung up, bled, disembowelled, and skinned. The veterinary surgeon makes an examination to see if he can detect disease. But this is not enough; a piece of the meat, a few ounces, is cut off, labelled, and sent to a laboratory, where further experiments are made. There is much greater care taken in these slaughter-houses of Argentina in the case of chilled and frozen meat than is usually taken at home in providing the "roast beef of old England." The carcases are placed in a chilling chamber, 34° Fahr., for twenty-four hours. Then they are cut in two, each side wrapped in a cloth, and taken into the refrigerator compartments on board a steamer. Should the investigation in the laboratory reveal disease the carcase is burnt.

To the layman inclined to be confused between the terms "chilled" and "frozen," it is well to explain the difference. Frozen meat is that which has been kept well below freezing point, and can be kept for an indefinite time. Chilled meat is not frozen, but it can be kept wholesome for some weeks when in a low temperature. Chilled meat is of better quality than frozen meat, and, as the Argentine ports are within three weeks of Smithfield, her produce has a distinct advantage over that of countries farther away, where the journey takes six weeks, and the meat cannot be kept chilled, but must be frozen.

I am aware of the prejudice against chilled meat. Yet I suspect that occasionally some of us, when paying for the home article, are really receiving the foreign meat, but we do not know the difference. The chilled meat trade—a later development than the frozen trade—has sprung into existence in Argentina mainly during the last dozen years. That which we get in London, whether from La Plata, Buenos Aires, or Chicago, is of better quality than the meat the Argentine or the American gets. The explanation is that the best meat is exported because it has to come into competition with British beef, which admittedly is the best in the world. The question, however, arises, what real detriment is there to meat as the result of freezing? Professor Rideal, of London University, who has made various experiments, has gone so far as to declare that the nutritive and digestive qualities of Argentine frozen meat are superior to those of the best freshly killed English meats, and that Argentine chilled meats possess the same qualities as English meat.

It was in 1880 that we began to receive frozen meat in any quantity from the Argentine, and year by year the quantity has increased. Other European countries are in need of cheap meat, and yet it is a singular fact that nine-tenths of the cold storage meat of the world comes to England. Just upon two hundred and fifty steamers are now engaged in bringing chilled or frozen meat to England from Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand. London alone has thirty cold stores with a capacity for storing 3,000,000 carcases of mutton. South America, Australia, and New Zealand have seventy freezing establishments, chiefly for the purpose of supplying the British market. Satisfactory though that market is, Argentina is not content. She is beginning to import her chilled meat into the United States. She is making a bid for the French market. Professor Armand Gautier, of the Academy of Science, of Paris, has stated that the French people ought to eat a third more meat than they do. As the French production is insufficient, he has urged the importation of meat preserved by cold, because it can be kept almost indefinitely, and because in times of epidemic disease in live stock, or lack of forage, and above all in time of war, it would lend most important service.

For a long time, however, Continental countries have been shy about foreign meat, chiefly, I believe, because they were thinking of the interests of the breeders at home. Frozen meat has, however, been received in limited quantities in Italy, Switzerland, and Portugal. The Austrian Government at first restricted the importation to 10,000 tons, but as the meat was popular the restriction was removed. So, gradually, frozen meat of good quality, and cheaper than native meat, is finding a way into other European markets besides our own. The German-Argentine Society, recently formed, has been petitioning the German Parliament for the admission of Argentine frozen meat. The considerable consumption of frozen meat in England is encouraging Argentina in her ambition to contribute to the feeding of the immense artisan populations in the industrial centres of the continent.

Now anyone who has been much at sea knows about jerked beef. The preparation of salt beef in the old sailing days was a great business, and Argentina's first endeavour in the meat business was the preparation of jerked beef, as it is called. It is not going too far to say that it was this business which opened the eyes of South Americans to the potentialities of their country. But gradually the trade got shifted to the neighbouring little Republic of Uruguay, with Monte Video as the chief place of export. A great many of the cattle killed in Uruguay are bred in Argentina. The trade has extended to Brazil. Brazil, however, still calls for Argentine cattle. So although this dry-salting was first practised in Argentina in South America, and the trade has to a great extent been removed, Argentina is getting benefit because she sells hundreds of thousands of steers to the neighbouring republics. During the last year or two there has been a distinct movement in Argentina to recapture the trade. There is a huge demand for jerked meat in Cuba—and Argentina is after the business. Argentina has both eyes on the whole of the West Indies, where there are great negro populations who, it is supposed, would welcome this cheap kind of meat. It can be used in tropical regions where expensive cold storage would be an impossibility. Besides, an inferior standard of animal, scarcely suitable for freezing, can be jerked.

The gigantic business in meat extracts carried on by such firms as Bovril and Liebig has given a cue to the wide-awake Argentine for another outlet to his enterprise. Indeed, the preparation of meat extract in Argentina to-day needs the killing of 200,000 head of cattle a year, whilst those killed for jerked beef are about three-quarters of that number. Anyway, Argentines, whilst glad enough to have foreign capital brought to develop their resources, are now constantly asking themselves, "Why do not we do all this?"

The fact is not to be overlooked that Argentina has a population of 7,000,000 to feed as well as to contribute to the feeding of the outer world. The population of the city of Buenos Aires is a million and a half. So, whilst it needs the killing of 4,000 head of cattle every day to keep the Republic supplied with meat, 1,800 of these are needed in the capital.