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

by Sir Woodbine Parish

Advantages of the situation of Buenos Ayres in a commercial point of view. Amount of Imports into Buenos Ayres in peaceable times. From what Countries. Great proportion of the whole British Manufactures. Articles introduced from other parts of the World. The Trade checked by the Brazilian War, and subsequent Civil Disturbances. Recovering since 1831. Proportion of it taken off by Monte Video since its independence. Comparative view of Exports. Scarcity of Returns. Capabilities of the Country. Advantage of encouraging Foreigners. The Wool Trade becoming of importance owing to their exertions. Other useful productions which may be cultivated in the interior. Account of the origin and increase of the Horses and Cattle in the Pampas.

In a commercial point of view we have only to look at the map to be satisfied of the great importance of the geographical position of Buenos Ayres. From the Amazons along a line of coast upwards of 2000 miles in extent, the River Plate affords the only means of communicating with all those vast regions in the interior of the continent comprised between the Andes and the mountainous districts which bound Brazil to the west. Not only the provinces of the Argentine Republic and of Paraguay, but the now independent states of Bolivia and Peru, are as yet only accessible from the Atlantic through the Rio de La Plata.

If there is but little intercourse between these states at present, it must be ascribed to political causes alone, and to such confined and restrictive notions as are, perhaps, to be expected from governments in their infancy.

The people of Bolivia and the eastern districts of Peru, whose wants from Europe were formerly supplied through Buenos Ayres, are now under separate governments of their own, which seem anxious to display their commercial as well as political independence of their old connexions by endeavouring to force the trade through other channels more immediately under their own control; but, however desirous those governments may be, under present circumstances, to establish a direct intercourse with Europe through their own ports in the Pacific, and however well adapted those ports may be for the supply of the provinces upon the west coast of America, there can be no doubt, so far as regards all those which lie to the eastward of the Cordillera, that, whenever the intermediate rivers shall be navigated by steam, for which they are so admirably calculated, the people of those vast countries will be much more easily supplied with all they want from Europe by inland water-carriage direct from Buenos Ayres than by the present circuitous route round Cape Horn, and the subsequent expensive conveyance by mules across the sandy deserts of Atacama, and the precipitous passages of the Andes.

As these young states acquire some practical knowledge of their real interests, and advance in the science of political economy, it may be expected that they will naturally make such arrangements amongst themselves for an interchange of commercial advantages as cannot but prove to their mutual benefit. And what could be of more importance, either to Buenos Ayres or Bolivia, or the back provinces of Brazil, than the establishment of an internal communication with each other by means of steam-navigation?

In the mean time, however, the trade of Buenos Ayres is limited to the supply of the people of her own provinces. If I may so call those in more immediate political connexion with her,—the soi-disant republic of the Rio de La Plata.

In order to show what may be the extent of that trade in times of peace and domestic quiet, it is necessary to go some years back.

From 1821 to 1825 the Republic was in a state of comparative tranquillity, and the government of Buenos Ayres in the hands of a provincial administration, wise enough to see how mainly the prosperity and importance of their country depended upon the fostering of its trade, and the establishment of a commercial intercourse with the rest of the world upon the most liberal principles. It was during that interval of repose and prosperity that I first landed in Buenos Ayres, and found all classes of the people rejoicing in the blessings of peace.

All the information which it was my duty to collect tended to show the great commercial capabilities of the country, and the facilities afforded by Buenos Ayres as an emporium for the trade with a very great part of the population of the interior of South America.

From a variety of documentary evidence in confirmation of this, which was furnished to me at the time, both by the British merchants and by the local authorities, I shall in the first instance quote the returns for the year 1822, as exhibiting the nature and amount of the trade of Buenos Ayres under the circumstances of undisturbed peace to which I have referred—that is, the trade of Buenos Ayres independently of the supply of any part of Peru, Bolivia, or Paraguay.