The Amazing Argentine: A New Land of Enterprise

The capital of Buenos Aires province is La Plata, about fifty miles away. I went down one day by the luncheon train, which runs out of the Plaza Constitution just after midday and does the journey in an hour. It was a fine train, and the luncheon car was bigger, and the food better than we have on English lines. The car was crowded with a sallow-skinned, black-moustached, black-garbed lot of gentlemen, and I gathered they were all Government officials. Nobody in Government employ thinks of doing any work in the morning. The men go to the office late and leave early. It was almost like home.

La Plata is a town that has missed its way. Full of grandiose ideas, and taking the United States as a model, it was decided to build La Plata as the federal capital on the Washington plan. Gorgeous buildings were erected; magnificent avenues were constructed; the loveliest of public gardens were laid out; a fine museum was founded; a great municipal theatre was piled up. In the public square bandstands were provided and statues to national heroes hoisted. It was to be the flower of Argentine towns. And every Argentine town, when it sets out to beautify itself, must have an avenida and a plaza and an equestrian statue of San Martin; the matters of water supply and drainage come later.

But the federal capital absolutely refused to settle at La Plata. It was too near Buenos Aires, where society lived, and where there was a whirl of excitement. So, perforce, the capital had to be at Buenos Aires, and a Government House for the residence of the President of the Republic was built, and is known as the "Palace o Gold," because of the money consumed in its construction.

Argentina is ever willing to vote vast sums for town adornment; but the money has a habit of evaporating before half the work is done, and then more is needed.

However, La Plata is the capital of the province of Buenos Aires; but the majority of officials refuse to live there. They prefer to come down from Buenos Aires at a quarter past one, and catch the quarter to five train back. The Governor has made appeals; he has even threatened what he will do if the officials do not live in La Plata. They take no notice. The consequence is that this beautiful city – and without doubt it is majestic in its spaciousness – is deserted, and a saunter through it is like a walk through an old cathedral town on a drowsy afternoon.

As a companion and a host no one could be more charming than the Argentine. He loves his country, but is willing to hear praise about other countries without thinking you wish to depreciate Argentina. He will go to infinite trouble to secure some particular information you are anxious to possess. Men on whom I had no personal claim whatever laid aside their work and devoted a couple of days in my behalf. As the men are courteous so the women are graceful, until lack of exercise and over-eating makes them stout. The girls are modest, but, I am afraid, centre their thoughts on dress. It rather shocked one to see that it is a habit for quite young girls of thirteen or fourteen years to daub their faces with powder. As for the young gentleman, he begins when twelve years of age to smoke and to tell lewd stories. He is impudent to the servants and to his parents, and I have known fathers smile when told their sons of fifteen have taken to visiting houses of ill-fame. Some Argentines are taking to healthy sport; but it would be better if all of them took to outdoor exercises, cricket, football, baseball, tennis, and golf. The Argentine young gentleman is bright but superficial, and is too fond of the clothes of the dandy and jewellery and perfumes to excite any admiration amongst men who dislike effeminacy in their own sex.

It was my good fortune to receive nothing but kindness from every class of Argentine that I met. But I am not going to hide I met Englishmen, who knew more about the Argentines and who had few generous things to say. "There is no morality, unless the young women are guarded; the Argentine is egotistic beyond words; domestic habits are dirty, and taking a bath is rare; the men chatter, and, whilst voluble with friendship, are suspicious; they are bombastic about patriotism, but are not above receiving bribes; all the advantages the Argentine has he owes to foreigners; he produces nothing himself; he is shallow and shiftless; the only business instinct he has is cunning, and the old Spanish mañana spirit – always putting off till to-morrow the performance of a business duty – is deep seated." All of which shows how impossible it is to draw a composite picture of an individual to represent a nation. Just as there are nice Englishmen and vulgar fellows, cultured Americans and bounders, delightful Germans and hoggish sots, so in Argentina it takes all sorts to make a people. The growing practice of well-to-do Argentines of sending their children to be educated in Europe has its advantages, though there is another side of the picture. They certainly acquire better manners than they pick up at home; they learn that Argentina is not the centre of the world. When they return to Argentina and display the consequences of foreign travel they are not popular.

As far as I could discern the Argentine, though still infused with Latin traits, still showy and talkative, more inclined to gamble than to do hard work, is breaking through and away from the old Spanish habits. European business men told me they were keen witted, but incompetent in practical affairs. But there is too much business now going on in Argentina, too much development of industries in which foreigners have little hand, too thorough a grasp of some of the problems which face all new lands, for the Argentines to be dismissed with a phrase.

I could see they were inexact, that they were fond of showing off, that knowledge of the world was thin; but I did understand their genuine ambition to lift Argentina into the first rank among nations; that where they lacked technical and mechanical knowledge themselves they were willing to let others come in; that they were quite alive to what progress means in the modern sense. The conservatism of the old Spaniard has completely disappeared. The Argentine wants the latest and the best. If one goes forth to gather faults it is easy enough to get a basketful. What drew me, however, was not so much listening to a catalogue of things he is not, but to mark down what he is, what he has done and is doing, and what he intends to do. As a small instance, in Buenos Aires the habit of the Spanish siesta is abandoned. There is no pulling down of business shutters between noon and three o'clock. The climate is enervating, but be the day never so steamy, with hot gusts panting from the north, the city is early alive with commerce, the suburban trains are packed, the Stock Exchange is a babble of excitement – and there never seems to be any drawing of rein till five or six in the afternoon. There is hustle.

The way the population jumps up is phenomenal. It signifies much that an eighth of a million is added to the population of a capital in a single year. Skyscrapers now tower over the buildings which were thought enormous a dozen years ago. Notwithstanding the services of the policemen directing the traffic, there is often a tangle of motor-cars, electric tramcars, private carriages and carts. New broadways are being driven through the city, and up go palatial stores. Most English newspapers are modest in locale. But the Argentine newspapers keep in the sun. La Prensa is one of the best-informed journals in the world. It has a noble exterior to its offices. Inside are luxurious suites of rooms, lecture halls, libraries, and the public are invited to enter. Every public building, all the clubs, even the churches, seem to be tied up with long ropes of different coloured electric lamps, so that on nights of festival the switch is jerked and the whole place is radiantly illuminated.

It is all very wonderful. The confusion, the barbarism, the love of beauty and the display of dollars, the inflow of invested gold, the coming of the immigrant, the whirl of business, the big deals, the gambling, the making of fortunes and the losing of fortunes, dazzle the mind. But you feel the fascination of Buenos Aires. It has grown so astonishingly in so short a time that you gasp when you contemplate how much more it is likely to grow.

CHAPTER IV

RAILWAY DEVELOPMENT IN THE REPUBLIC

The place Argentina holds in the world is due to the meat and wheat it sends to other lands. But having recognised its fecundity as a good food-producing area, it is well to start at the beginning. Argentina may have had fine grazing tracks capable of rearing untold millions of cattle and arable land that had only to be scratched to yield excellent crops of cereals; but without transport values are at a minimum. Accordingly, the development and prosperity of the Argentine is mainly due to railways. The sum of £300,000,000 British capital is invested in Argentine railways and electric tramways.

I travelled a good deal in the Republic, from Buenos Aires to Inca in the Andes, and from Tucuman in the north to Bahia Blanca in the south. I journeyed over hundreds of miles of flat, featureless, dreary country that grew nothing but wild grasses until a few years ago. And there are plenty of sandy, bush-studded, alkali-stricken acres – just as you find barren patches in the United States, Canada, Siberia, and Australia – but there are thousands of leagues awakened into life, estancias with great herds of cattle munching at the alfalfa, stretches of wheat and maize, on and on, as though without end, the only break on the horizon being the colonist's mud hut, a clump of trees – and it always seems the same clump of trees – which indicates a ranch, and the ever-whirring American water-wheel. As you travel through England it is the spires of churches that pierce the sky. The only thing that ever pierces the sky on the Argentine pampas is the zinc American water-wheel. The Argentine estanciero thinks a water-wheel is of more use to him than a church.

All over this land, zigzagging, curving, intersecting, sometimes running in an absolutely straight line for a hundred and fifty miles, is the greatest length of railway lines in the world for a population of seven millions. The towns are far apart; villages are few. You journey half a day, and, except at the little wayside stations, do not see more than half a dozen folk on the land. Yet it is a smiling land, and greets the sunshine with abundance. The railways in the Argentine are to garner this wealth. Freight trains, with cars of the colossal American pattern, trundle their long length across the plains.

I recall one night when, at a forgotten siding, the engine drew out to get water, taking a saunter along the train side. It was brilliantly lit with electricity, and the restaurant car, with the usual little red-shaded lamps on the tables, was busy; crowds of passengers were dining, and the usual waiters were scurrying, and there was the usual Continental fare, and champagne and Moselle wines, and the usual mineral waters you get on the Nord express. That gleaming train in central South America was the symbol of what railway enterprise has done in Argentina.

There are 20,000 miles of railroads in the Republic. The British showed the way in the initial building, and their lines pass through some of the fattest territory. The French have been tardy followers, but have constructed useful minor lines. The Argentine Government has built State lines through country that was suitable for colonisation, but which did not appeal to the outside investor. These State railways are financially a failure. One reason is that the territory through which they run is not of the best. The principal reason is that they are the prey of the politicians. Constituencies have to be considered, and innumerable jobs found for the hangers-on of political parties. Business conditions are the last to be thought of, and, though the Government has done well in throwing these lines into distant regions needing development, they are not likely to succeed until placed under different control.

Not only have the Argentines themselves not started railway companies, but they have no money invested in the foreign companies. One cause is that, though the Government insists on a local board of directors, the real board of directors is abroad, chiefly in London. Another cause is that dividends are limited by law to 7 per cent., and that is not a sufficient return for the Argentine. He does not care to touch investments that do not yield 12 per cent., and when he gets 30 per cent. he thinks that about fair – and the country is so prosperous it can afford it.

Although within the last fifteen years millions of British money have poured into Argentina for railway construction, the investor in the old days cast a hesitating eye on South America as a place to sink his capital. In the 'fifties a railway a few miles long was all that Argentina could boast, and ten years later, when 7 per cent. was guaranteed, money was not forthcoming. As an inducement to construct a line between Rosario and Cordoba the absolute ownership of three miles on either side of the line was offered. Even with such an attraction the British investor was shy.

Gradually, however, money was forthcoming, and lines were laid. In the 'eighties there came a spurt. It was not till the years following 1900 that money could be had for the asking. Lines cobwebbed the profitable country; distant points were linked up; land which previously had little beyond prairie value bounced up in price.

Though to-day there is a thought in the public mind that a little too much money has been thrown into Argentina, that land prices are too inflated – which they are – I have traversed districts which three years ago were wilderness; but a spur of railway has been driven into them, and instantly farming has been started. I saw hundreds of freshly-built homesteads – crude, and the life harsh, but it was the beginning of great things – and alfalfa had been laid down, and cattle were feeding, and wide spaces which previously were sandy and apparently inhospitable were carpeted with the bright green of new wheat. Just as in Canada there is a belief that the breaking up of the land had decreased the severity of the frost, so there is a belief in Argentina that rains follow the plough. Places which formerly had little rainfall, and which had a doubtful agricultural future, are proving successful. Yet without the advance of railways the country would have been as forlorn as when the Indians roved the pampas.

Railway companies in England have had to fight landowners to make headway. In Argentina landowners welcome the coming of a railway, for obvious reasons. Most of the wealthy Argentines owe their fortunes to their land being benefited by the railways. As a rule, out in the far districts, a railway company can get the necessary land for nothing. Owners are willing to make financial contributions. The general managers of the big British railways in Argentina get large salaries – £7,000 a year. This is partly to remove them from the range of temptation of being bribed by owners, syndicates, or land companies to authorise the making of railways where they would not be economically advisable. Of course, extensions near the big towns cost the railways as much as they would in England. I know a man who thirty years ago bought a piece of land for £1,600. He sold it to a railway company for over £200,000.

Though foreign capital is having so extensive a run in networking the country with railways, the Argentine Government has a much closer grip on the working of the lines than the Board of Trade has on English companies. It is therefore no misrepresentation to say that, whilst private owners are glad to have their property enhanced in value by the juxtaposition of a railway, the Government puts obstacles in the way for what are ostensibly public reasons. Accordingly, expensive "diplomacy" has sometimes to be used. The Government is sufficiently aware of the return the foreign investor gets – and when fresh extensions are sought it invariably withholds its consent until some concession has been wrung out of the company, such as an undertaking to construct a line through a district that cannot, for some time at any rate, be a success. There is never any guarantee that another company will not be formed to work the same district. The Government smiles at the fight between the two lines for traffic – to the public benefit. When companies propose to amalgamate the Government either makes such demands in regard to uneconomic lines that the thing falls through or a veto is put upon the amalgamation altogether.

Perhaps it is due to the excellence of the railways that the Argentine high roads are so bad. And frankly, though I know most of the new lands of the world, I know of no region where the country roads are so villainous as in this Republic. Rarely are they anything beyond mother earth. In wet weather they are quagmires, and I have seen vehicles stranded, unable to be hauled by a team of five horses. In summer, when rain is absent, they are foot-deep furrows of dust. I shall never forget a motor excursion through the sugar plantations round about Tucuman. The way was like a magnified ploughed field, and all the ridges were of dust. We drove through it as an engine drives through snow.

All railway material comes in duty free, but one of the conditions is that 3 per cent. of the profits shall be used for the making of roads leading to railway stations. The companies do not object, because the call is not large, and it is to their interest that agriculturists should be able to get their produce to the railway station to be transported over the lines.

The Direccion-General de Ferrocarriles is the authority over the railways in Argentina. It decides the number of trains which shall be run, and it insists on the number of coaches. There must be a certain number of dormitory cars on all-night trains, and restaurant cars are obligatory over certain distances. Every train carries a letter-box, and recently the companies have been squeezed into carrying the mails for nothing. A medicine chest, a stretcher, a bicycle – so that quick communication can be made with the nearest station in case of accident – and all sorts of necessities in case of a breakdown are compulsory. Every carriage is thoroughly disinfected every month, and there is always a card to be initialled by an inspector. All bedding and mattresses are subject to scientific disinfection such as I have seen nowhere in Europe.

No time-tables can be altered without the sanction of the National Railway Board at least two months before coming into operation. If trains stop at stations for which they are not scheduled a heavy fine is imposed; and all late trains, and the reason, have to be reported to the Government authority. No alteration, however small, to a station building or to the design of rolling stock is permissible without the sanction of the Government representatives. A complaint book is at every station, open to anyone to complain on any subject. Guards also keep a book. Many of the complaints are amusing. I heard of one man who insisted on writing in the complaint book that "everything was in perfect order and the staff faultless." Occasionally passengers will have a dispute, and whilst one will find fault in the complaint book with the manners of the train attendants, another will write beneath that the attendants are all right, and it is the complainant's manners which are at fault.

There are the usual buffers in front of an engine; but they are all hinged, and have to be hoisted backwards when a train is travelling, because if an animal were run into, the cow-catcher might not be able to throw the beast aside, for it could be caught between the catcher and the protruding buffer. Though, on the face of it, the Government subjects the companies to innumerable restrictions, and frequently imposes vexatious regulations, it must be recognised that public safety is the thought behind them all.

The Republic lives by its exports of meat and agricultural produce. Ninety-five per cent. of this trade is carried to the ports by the railways. From the railroad cars one beholds productiveness; yet fifteen or twenty miles away lies land just as productive but as yet untouched by the plough, because there is neither sufficient population to cultivate nor railways to carry. Within the next dozen years there must inevitably be a further spurt in the making of feeding or auxiliary lines. Something like £20,000,000 a year is crossing the ocean for fresh railway enterprises in Argentina. Nearly 40,000,000 tons of goods are carried over the lines each year, and the receipts are something like £25,000,000 annually. And yet but a fragment of the harvest of this new land is being garnered. Its untrodden millions of acres await new railways to open up the country.

CHAPTER V

SETTLEMENT ON THE LAND

Prolific though Argentina is, and though its agricultural wealth has only been scratched, it cannot be described as an ideal country for the poor immigrant. The eyes of the land have been well picked, and there are rich personal estates covering one hundred and fifty square miles.

There is little disposition to voluntary splitting up of estates, but rather to hold whilst annually the value increases with the coming of people and the advancement of railways. The Government is doing something to assist the small man with limited capital to settle on distant Government lands. But the poor immigrant, with nothing but his muscle and his industry, has a long and rough road to travel before he reaches independence as a landed proprietor. It is a hard land in which to start making a fortune; but the man of money who can step into the Republic, say, with £25,000 to play with, and who invests judiciously, can double his capital in three years.

Whilst the old Argentines, those of Spanish descent, have waxed wealthy simply by sitting still and letting the foreigner develop their property, there are British Argentine families whose estates, if realised, would produce double-figured millions, and whose proprietors landed as labourers less than fifty years ago. Money has come to lots of these people, shrewd and lucky, as though they held the key to a cave of jewels. Some have remained modest in spite of possessions; others look upon gold as the only god, and their blatant display at Mar del Plata, and on the steamers of the Royal Mail Company, is something which would make the conduct of the new rich of Chicago Quakerish by comparison.

The cry of Argentina, like that of all new lands, is for population. Over 300,000 fresh arrivals land annually from all corners of the earth, Russia, Syria, France, Germany, and England, but mainly from Spain and Italy. Whilst the Spaniard comes to stay, there is a considerable ebb and flow amongst the Italians, thousands coming out for the harvest when wages are high, and making sufficient to return for the rest of the year; then they return for the next harvest. Allowing for the ebb, Argentina gets a solid increase in population by immigration of over 250,000 persons a year, and there are no assisted passages and no offers of free land.

At each of the ports are Government hotels for immigrants. That at Buenos Aires accommodates a thousand people. The new arrival, instead of being distraught at landing in a strange country, or possibly falling a prey to its sharks, is housed and fed for five days as the guest of his new country. Careful inquiry is made as to capabilities, and, as there is a never-satisfied demand from the interior for labourers, work is certain, and officials see him and his baggage on the train, and an official meets him at his destination and sees him firmly settled in his fresh life. As work is assured, Argentina is a land where there are no unemployed – except amongst the dissolute, who are to be found in all countries. I saw these immigrants on the Avon gathered at Vigo, and I saw them in distant provinces, and I was struck with their sturdiness and health. I place on record that I never saw a drunken man during all my wanderings in the Republic. Blessed with a fine climate, and the winter so temperate that fires are not necessary, life is easy, and there is no crushing into towns for work, as is usual in Canada during the frozen months.

Owing to such immense tracts being held by individual owners – many of whom prefer the pleasures of Paris and Buenos Aires to living on the land where the cereals are grown – most of the cultivation is done by "colonists." The system varies in different parts of the country, but the general procedure is much on these lines. In a little centre of population, maybe a village, but important because those who live many miles round are dependent upon it for supplies, is to be found a store where most things can be bought, from a plough to a tin kettle. The storekeeper enters into a contract with the owner of vast lands to cultivate it, either on rent or on shares of the value of the produce. This storekeeper is a middleman, often a sweater. Though I have no doubt there are honourable exceptions, he is often a thief into the bargain. He gets a "colonist" to take over a certain area and to cultivate it on shares. The "colonist" has to build a mud house, and sink a well, and he has to buy his plough and hire his horses, and obtain all necessaries from the middleman, who can fix his own price. When the wheat or the maize is gathered the only man to whom the "colonist" can sell is the middleman, who has it very much in his own hands to say what the price shall be, and he frequently furnishes the ignorant "colonist" with false returns as to quantity. But even then he keeps back what is owing on agricultural implements and loaned horses, with the consequence that the poor fellow has very little – if any – margin. It is not too much to say that the "colonists" are in the grip of the middlemen, and it is with difficulty they are ever able to break free.