11. That the country is being opened up in all directions by English Railway enterprises, one of which, the Rosario and Cordova Line, will be 247 miles in length, and is considered to be ultimately destined to cross the entire country to Chili, and thus to form a highway for the traffic between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
12. That the acquisition of land is easy and its tenure secure, and that additional and extraordinary facilities for settlement are in course of introduction by the circumstance of about a million of acres on the sides of their line having been ceded to the Rosario and Cordova (Central Argentine) Railway Company, and of a grant of 10,400 square miles in the fertile province of Cordova having been made to Mr. Etchegaray, which is to be transferred to a London Company.
Finally, it is to be observed, that the debt of the country, foreign and internal, the interest on which is paid with unfailing punctuality, is comparatively small; that it is gradually in course of extinction, and that the six per cent. bonds in the London market range between 90 and 100; that there are no direct taxes; and that the commerce of the country is increasing with such rapidity, that in the Board of Trade Returns of British exports for the past year (1864), it figures for £1,758,058, and stands higher in the list than Chili or Peru, and, as regards European countries, higher than Prussia, Sweden and Norway, Denmark, and many others with which we have an important traffic.
The present population of the Argentine Republic is but about 2,000,000, and immigration may be said to be its only want. This is felt and acknowledged by all classes, and every arrival is therefore warmly welcomed. The tide thither is gradually increasing, and persons best acquainted with the country express a conviction that the growth of Buenos Ayres, which at present is a fine city, with about 200,000 inhabitants, will during the next twenty years rival that which has been witnessed at New York during the like period in the past. In several cases persons of moderate capital have emigrated from Australia and New Zealand to the Argentine Republic, owing to the advantages of its greater proximity to England, and its superior facilities for the acquisition of land.
By far the greater portion of the country consists of rich alluvial plains, constituting what are called the Pampas. The climate is subject to a great difference of temperature in winter and summer, but the changes are gradual and regular. The winter is about as cold as the English November, with white frosts, and ice at sunrise. “Taken as a whole, the Pampas may be said to enjoy as beautiful and as salubrious an atmosphere as the most healthy parts of Greece and Italy, and without being subject to malaria.”[[14]]
The country is universally celebrated for the abundance of its cattle, horses, sheep, goats, asses, mules, and swine. The number of cattle fifteen years ago was estimated at 12,000,000, and the horses, mules, and asses at more than 4,000,000, and they are supposed since that period to have largely increased.
The salubrity of the climate seems especially beneficial to immigrants from this country, its influence being singularly restorative wherever there is any tendency to bronchial or pulmonary affections. In some districts, such as that of the beautiful city and province of Cordova, these disorders appear to be almost unknown, and as on the completion of the Central Argentine Railway it will be possible to reach the city of Cordova from London in little more than a month, that place may probably become a sanitarium for Europeans in a majority of the most important cases where change of climate is desirable.
Protection of Immigrants.
An influential Commission, of which Senor Don M. J. Azcuenaga is President, is formed at Buenos Ayres to assist Immigrants, by whom the following Notice is issued. Similar care is exercised at the Port of Rosario:—
Notice.—The Committee of Immigration to Immigrants arriving at the Port of Buenos Ayres.