The Amazing Argentine: A New Land of Enterprise

by John Foster Fraser

A good year sees the industrious farmer with a surplus of anything from 10,000 to 20,000 dollars (Argentine). Should bad weather or working misfortunes turn the account the other way he has only to apply to the administration in Buenos Aires, and the money advanced is simply added to the purchase price of his holding.

On the whole the Jewish colonists are thrifty and prosperous. They have their own co-operative societies for the purchase of necessities and the distribution of their products; they have their sick funds and local hospitals; religious freedom has enabled them to establish their own tabernacles and to observe the Jewish feasts. They have set a splendid example in citizenship to their neighbouring colonists. In the Argentine, perhaps more than elsewhere, the Jews are on the high road to a restoration of their ancient virility, and are best fulfilling their destiny as a great race.

With the exception of the Welsh settlements already alluded to, the Jews stand alone as colonists on purely racial lines. The effectiveness of their organisation is the measure of their contentment and prosperity. We have the contrast in the case of other immigrants. Many of them are captured by the political agitator. They are taught to see in revolt and industrial uprising the short cut to affluence and ease. Strikes are frequent, discontent is sown, and time is devoted to attacks upon authority which might be better employed in individual effort. Politics are so inseparable from the daily affairs of the country that discontent in the main becomes wholly political. Its manifestations have no bearing upon the social and commercial possibilities of the Argentine. With wise and tolerant government on the one hand, and patience and perseverance on the other, much of the friction that now arises would disappear.

For it has to be admitted that some of the attacks upon the bureaucracy are not altogether inexcusable. With the influence of officialdom forcing itself upon every interest of the working classes, the inevitable increase in the cost of living, and the instances of bureaucratic tyranny frequently brought to light, it is not to be wondered that the unorganised labourer adopts the exaggerated point of view of the agitator, and sees in revolution alone the pathway to reform.

In Buenos Aires, for example, the cost of living is greater than elsewhere, though the scale of wages is also higher. Imported goods are dear, rent high, efficient labour scarce, and municipal rates heavy. The result is that even the highly paid worker finds himself with only a moderate balance when all charges are met.

With the agriculturist things are not so bad. He can produce for himself most of the necessaries of life, and can avoid many of the burdens of the townsman in the way of expensive clothing and other imported luxuries. Strange as it may appear in a country supplying most of the world's markets, meat in Buenos Aires is nearly as dear as in England. The same applies to many other commodities produced or producible in the country. A comparative list shows few things cheaper in the Argentine than in the Old World.

The cost of the breakfast table might be reduced considerably if more trouble were taken with what one might describe as the by-products of agriculture. The people are invariably out for the big deal in cattle or corn. Insufficient attention is paid to dairy-farming, poultry rearing, gardening, fruit-growing, and the production of those little comforts that are now part and parcel of agriculture in England and France. The cultivator's first and, in the majority of cases, only thought is the land and its direct yield. With the same opportunities many an English small-holder would make a quick fortune in Argentina. In this oversight the Argentine has gone the way of most new countries. The question of "agricultural smalls," however, as I have shown, is now being considered in conjunction with the increased cost of living.

Labour is so scarce in some parts that the introduction of Chinese or Japanese colonists has been suggested. Such a step, however, would arouse as fierce a criticism as did the introduction of Chinese coolies on the South African Rand mines. They were tried in Chili, and are by no means liked. The lumber trade of Posados still requires thousands of workers. The natives cannot be kept at work to any extent, and to meet the demand Russians, Poles, and Finns have been brought over in thousands. Timber for railway sleepers is the principal product. Each year some two million logs are sent down the Parana River to be used in railway construction at home and abroad.

The lessons of the great coal strike in England during 1912 were quickly grasped by the Government of Argentina. Like other countries depending upon Great Britain for coal supplies, Argentina had to consider the disastrous consequences of any disorganisation of her transport service. Substitutes for coal fuel had to be counted. The crisis of this period proved a blessing in disguise. Government attention was directed towards the discovery of oil in widely separated districts of the Republic. A law has now been passed reserving to the Government 12,500 acres of the petroleum zone of Comodora Rivadavia, and prohibiting the issue of any mining or proprietary rights. To displace coal, Argentina would require 2,000,000 tons of oil fuel and about 150 wells. A start has been made in the south, where fresh wells are being sunk at Comodora Rivadavia. Five wells produced 18,000 tons of petroleum in a year of experiment. In 1913 it rose to 28,000 tons. When the Argentine can turn its attention from the sources of wealth now being tapped, who knows what will follow the enterprise in oil? But nothing has been found which would warrant a "boom" in Argentine oil.

Meanwhile, an annual increase of 1,000,000 tons in the shipping trade of Buenos Aires has left Argentina, like Oliver Twist, asking for more. The cattle-breeding industry responds to each stimulus given by the provision of more refrigerating vessels. The supply of meat is always greater than the means of distribution. Already America is looking to the Argentine for meat to augment her own supplies. It is the only country to which she can turn with confidence. Other parts of the world have for years been fed from here. The dependence of the outer world upon the meat and cereals of Argentina almost suggests that the country was pre-ordained to be the larder of the human family.