Buenos Ayres and the Provinces of the Rio de La Plata / Their Present State, Trade, and Debt

by Sir Woodbine Parish

PROVINCE OF CORRIENTES.

The population of the province of Corrientes in 1824 was estimated at from 35,000 to 40,000 inhabitants. It is ruled by a governor elected by a junta of deputies,—how they are chosen I know not. His official acts are countersigned by a secretary, and in law matters he is assisted by an officer termed the assessor,—a point of form common, I believe, to all the provincial administrations, and derived from the practice of the intendents in the time of the Spanish rule.

The city of Corrientes was begun in 1588, soon after De Garay founded his settlements at Santa Fé and Buenos Ayres. Its position is in latitude 27° 27´, at the junction of the rivers Paranã and Paraguay, and it may also be said of the Vermejo, the mouth of which is not more than ten leagues distant from it:—it affords, in consequence, every facility for an active commercial intercourse with the most remote parts of the republic. The natural productions in these latitudes are similar to those of Brazil, and cotton, tobacco, rice, sugar, indigo, and many other articles of the first demand in the markets of Europe, may be produced there in any quantity:—but the same difficulties to which I have already alluded, in speaking of the navigation of the Paranã, aggravated by increased distance, have hitherto prevented the people of Corrientes from profiting, as might have been expected, by these advantages, and have checked all inducement to industry; although they themselves, in their simplicity, ascribe the non-cultivation of their lands to different causes:—they think, with their neighbour Dr. Francia, that foreign ships might just as well go to them as to Buenos Ayres, and that they do not do so they ascribe to the policy of the metropolitan government, which they ungratefully reproach with refusing to throw open the navigation of the river to foreign trade in order to appropriate to their own purposes the revenue resulting from it,—regardless of the fact that the collection of those duties is the only means by which Buenos Ayres can ever expect to discharge either interest or capital of the heavy debts she has incurred in securing the independence, and in since upholding the honour and credit of the republic.

There can be no doubt that it will always be the true policy of the governors of Buenos Ayres to render those duties as light as possible, and especially to reduce, as far as they can, all charges upon the native produce from the provinces of the interior; but if they are to be placed, as they always have been, and from their geographical position always must be, in the vanguard of the republic, to bear the brunt of foreign wars, and all those expenses which must naturally arise out of their intercourse with other nations, they can never give up their right to avail themselves of the ordinary resources for meeting such exigencies which are placed within their reach.

If the expenses of the war with the mother country for their independence, and afterwards of that with Brazil for establishing that of the Banda Oriental, could be fairly apportioned amongst the population of the provinces, the people of Corrientes, as well as of all other parts of the interior, would soon see that the custom-house duties now levied at Buenos Ayres which affect them would go but little way to meet anything like the share of that national expenditure which might be justly charged against them.

It is, however, useless to enter into this discussion, when the truth is, that, whether Buenos Ayres chooses or not to declare the navigation of the Paranã free, the people of Corrientes may rest assured it will never answer to the shipping of foreign nations to avail themselves of it:—foreigners will purchase the productions of Corrientes and of Paraguay if placed within their reach at low prices, but they will not unnecessarily incur the risks and expenses of sending their own ships a thousand miles up a river against wind and tide, in quest of a cargo which may at all times be had in the seaports of Brazil.

Steam-communication will enable the Correntinos to compete with the Brazilians, and it is perhaps the only means by which they will be enabled to find any sale for their produce at such a rate as will make it worth the while of foreigners to seek for it, even in the market of Buenos Ayres. They have every facility for establishing it,—navigable rivers communicating with the farthest extremes of the republic,—and an endless abundance of wood of every kind for fuel.

A remarkable physical feature in this province is the great lagoon of Ybera, extending in width about thirty leagues parallel to the course of the Paranã, from which it is supposed to derive its waters by some underground drainage, for no stream runs into it. Spreading far and wide to the south it occupies the enormous space of about a thousand square miles, and supplies four considerable rivers—the Mirinay, which runs into the Uruguay; and the Santa Lucia, the Bateles, and the Corrientes, which discharge themselves into the Paranã. It was Azara's opinion, from the general aspect of the country, that the Paranã itself at some former period took its course through this lake, and might again resume its ancient channel. At present it is hardly possible to explore any part of it from the prodigious quantity of aquatic plants and shrubs by which it is for the most part covered.

What a store of lacustrine deposits is here forming for the examination of future geologists!