It is essential to all industrial expansion that a country's credit should be good and its currency stable. Argentina is well off in this respect. Contrasted with some other American republics, in which revolution, revolt, and financial distress are painfully frequent, Argentina is a political and financial paradise. This stability, if not in itself an inducement to the investment of capital, is at any rate a guarantee that capital may be invested with safety. And in these days safety itself is a big inducement. Paper dollars form the everyday currency of the country. Careful provision has been made to establish the paper in circulation on a definite gold basis. Since the Caja de Conversion, the Government institution for the issue, exchange, and conversion of the paper currency, was established in 1899, the paper dollar has always been worth $.44 gold (between 1s. 8d. and 1s. 9d.). Certain specified resources are appropriated for the formation of a conversion fund, which guarantees the paper currency.
During the latter part of 1913 there was a considerable shipment of English sovereigns to the Republic. Under the Pellegrini Law passed in 1902 the Caja de Conversion must hold in gold an equivalent to the paper money in circulation. Indeed, the National Conversion Office, the National Bank of Argentina, the London and River Plate Bank and other banks had in June, 1913, an accumulation of gold amounting to £67,188,039. The gold in the Caja de Conversion began with the insignificant sum of £568 on December 31st, 1902; in 1904 it was just over £10,000,000; the next year it was up to over £18,000,000, and on June 30th, 1913, it was £53,306,866.
Argentina has a number of well-established banks, affording many facilities for the development of trade and industrial enterprise. One of the principal, the Banco Hipotecario Nacional, makes a feature of special loans for building and land improvements. Its loans are made on the mortgages of property by the issue of bearer bonds in lieu of cash to persons mortgaging properties to the bank. It need not be feared, therefore, that industrial enterprises of reasonable prospects will starve for the want of financial credit during the difficult years of inauguration. On the contrary, there is a good supply of money waiting fresh outlets. Bankers realise that it is to their own as well as to the country's advantage to have a wide field of financial operations. They have the money if others have the enterprise and the initiative.
The point has now been reached at which manufactories might well be harnessed to agriculture not only for the fuller working of Argentina's resources, but for remedying some of the social difficulties that have arisen through her relying too much upon one source of wealth.
[CHAPTER XXII]
THE NORTH-EAST COUNTRY
Although travellers in the Republic usually visit Rosario, it is seldom they devote much time to studying the full capabilities of the province of Santa Fé, of which Rosario is the chief town. Yet Santa Fé and Corrientes to the north, and Entre Rios to the east, deserve much more than passing recognition.
Though in the north of Santa Fé, towards the region of the Chaco, there are thick forests, the southern part is treeless, except for the ombu, and is a plain with rich pasturage and soil. Along the side of the province runs the Parana River, which can be ascended by flat-bottomed stern wheel vessels for many hundreds of miles; and from ports like those of Santa Fé and Villa Constitucion much agricultural produce in maize, wheat, linseed, and barley are dispatched. The sugar industry is gradually creeping into Santa Fé province. Nearly fifty flour mills have been erected, and there are also sawmills, meat preserving factories, and works for quebracho extracts. Though railways are penetrating in all directions through the province, having at the present time 3,000 miles of lines, the River Parana is, and long will be, the chief highway, because circumstances in the old times led to the principal towns being constructed on its banks, and because some of its tributaries are also navigable for a considerable distance.