Argentina possesses some fine marble quarries and their production has been gradually increasing. The production of gold and silver is comparatively small. Within the past year petroleum has been found near Mendoza, and a number of good wells have been sunk. If this valuable oil can be found in large quantities it will go a long ways toward solving the problem of cheaper fuel. Nearly three million tons of coal are imported annually to supply the need of fuel. Nearly all of this coal is imported from England, the shipments from the United States in 1909 being only a few thousand tons, but petroleum products are nearly all imported from North America. The value of the products of the mines of Argentina will average nearly a million dollars a year.
CHAPTER VI
THE PROVINCE OF GOOD AIRS
“You must see La Plata.”
I heard this from so many Argentinians that it led me to visit this made-to-order city of which they are so proud. It is an hour’s ride—thirty-five miles—from Buenos Aires to La Plata. After leaving the suburbs the train crosses the dead level of the pampas in a line as direct as the crow would fly. Through great estancias, with their immense herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, the line passes, after escaping from the suburbs of the metropolis, with a half dozen small and unimportant towns along the route, in which the one-storied buildings are ever built in monotonous lines with the front wall a little higher than the rest in order to give it a fictitious height. One explanation given me for this high front is that it acted as a protection in street fighting. Whether built for that purpose or not, this parapet has frequently been used by both civilians and troops as a protection in the revolutionary scrimmages which have been so frequent in the past. At last the train runs into an imposing station that would be a credit to almost any city, with a façade which is really an architectural gem. This is La Plata, the wonderful.
When the national government appropriated the city of Buenos Aires as the national capital the inhabitants of the province of the same name, which had hitherto dominated the country, were highly indignant. Unable to change the official edict they set to work to create a rival city. At that time there was not even a settlement at La Plata, and only a few mud huts denoted its location. A site down the river was chosen in order to secure a deeper natural channel, and avoid the necessity of so much dredging to keep the channel free from mud. A new port, called Enseñada, was constructed, with commodious docks, the new capital having been located five miles back from the water front. To complete this stupendous undertaking the province assumed a bonded debtedness of $70,000,000, most of which was obtained in Europe, and not until then was the vanity of these provincials appeased. It was one of the greatest follies that the Argentinians have ever engaged in.
It was in 1881 that the government decided to build this new capital for the province of Buenos Aires. It was to be a model city, and worthy of its rank as the chief city of the wealthiest province of an opulent republic. To this end the finest architectural raiment for a corporate body that could possibly be conceived was erected, with all the ostentation possible in a Latin nation. Magnificent public buildings, palatial law courts, a great cathedral and stately edifices of every kind—all were comprised in the scheme. Broad avenues paved and planted with rows of trees, stretching their long lengths between the imposing facades, were traced upon paper by the architects, and builders were set at work to reproduce these plans out of brick, stone and mortar, and the resulting city of La Plata stands to-day as their monument.
The city was laid out with an astonishing degree of boldness and originality, and upon an ambitious scale. It was hoped by the builders that its splendour would bring to mind those pictured conceptions of the perfect town. Each edifice was to be so placed as to lend its own proper proportion of dignity. In this model town there was to be no crowding together of palaces, as had heretofore been common in Spanish cities, nor were rows of squalid little one-storied houses to be permitted to jostle with their imposing fronts the walls of stately palaces. No, not in La Plata. To accomplish this result the resplendent palaces were planted at regular intervals about the city, each in its own garden and faced by its own boulevard and plaza, and separated from the next one by a becoming row of private houses. There was to be no confusion or congestion as a result of buildings crowded together, and no vulgar hustling. In justice to the builders it may be said that there never has been anything of the latter quality, for the strenuous life has never yet found lodgment in La Plata.
