The Amazing Argentine: A New Land of Enterprise

The second big railway which attracted my admiration was the Buenos Aires and Pacific, which strikes westward across the continent. The company was formed as recently as 1882, but it has a present capital of over £50,500,000. It owns 1,406 miles, it leases 2,011 miles, and so operates 3,417 miles. Some 150 miles are under construction. It has over 16,000,000 passengers annually, and over 6,000,000 tons of freight; and its gross earnings in the last financial year (July 1912 to June 1913) were £5,590,613. During the last ten years it has absorbed a number of lesser lines – the Villa Maria Rufino, the Bahia Blanca and North-Western, the Great Western, and, lastly, the Argentine Transandine. It has also bought a length of over 200 miles of Government line out in the west. The "B.A. and Pacific" has several subsidiary undertakings. In conjunction with the Great Southern Railway it has a well-equipped light and power company. In my chapter on Bahia Blanca I shall deal with the port accommodation provided by the Pacific Company to dispatch the grain produced within its area to Europe. Perhaps the most important improvement made by the company has been the high level independent access to the city of Buenos Aires. This line, which is five miles in length, consists of two viaducts of brickwork, containing 116 arches of 42.3 feet span each, and 19 steel bridges, the largest being 178.8 feet. From the River Plate an area of 366 acres is being reclaimed to be used for goods sidings and access to the docks. For the conveyance of coal, and materials for use on the line, the company owns its own fleet of steamers. It would be easy enough to give a bunch of figures to show how the passenger traffic has grown; anyway, its suburban service bears comparison with that of any other line entering the capital.

The Buenos Aires and Pacific Railway is becoming increasingly popular, for people desiring to see the world now travel from "B.A." across the pampas, over the Andes, and so down to Valparaiso in Chili, where steamers can be obtained to take them up to Peru, Panama, and San Francisco. Leaving "B.A.," the train runs for some twelve hours across an extensive plain which is far from indicating to the traveller the great mountain ranges which will surprise him later on. Across this plain the lines of the railway extend in an absolutely straight line from Vedia to Makenna, a distance of 175 miles, which is the world's record. Near the first-mentioned station the railway curves in the form of an S; without this, the stretch on the straight would have been 206 miles long.

Although the pampas are occasionally marked by undulations and small green-covered slopes, the first notable elevations are not encountered until Mercedes is reached. These are the San Luis hills, the outposts of the Cordillera. Passing on the western side of this chain the picturesque city of San Luis is reached. As the traveller approaches the Cordillera of the Andes he finds himself in a district topographically distinct but always fertile, and watered by canals fed by the Tunuyan and Mendoza rivers. The view of the Cordillera in the early morning is a spectacle worthy of admiration. At a distance of one hundred miles before arrival at Mendoza the interminable chain of the Andes, with its snow-capped peaks mingling with the clouds, is distinguishable. As the train approaches their imposing grandeur becomes more and more evident. Another of the views which delights the tourist, and makes the business man think, is that of the smiling vineyards extending on both sides of the line in a delightful prospect until lost on the horizon.2

From Mendoza the line runs across the Andes by the Uspallata Valley route, the only transcontinental line in South America. What the Suez Canal and the Trans-Siberian Railway have done for the Far Eastern trade, the Transandine Railway is achieving for transcontinental traffic in South America by giving rapid communication between the two South American Republics – reducing the journey between Buenos Aires and Valparaiso from thirteen and a half days to thirty-eight hours – and thereby cementing closer commercial relations and developing trade with the Far East.

This has only been made possible by the summit tunnel of the Transandine Railway, which was opened for public traffic in May, 1910, so that the distance between Buenos Aires and Valparaiso has been reduced to 888 miles. It is probably of interest to state that this tunnel is one of the longest of its kind in the world, being 10,384 feet long, including two artificial ends 442 feet in length altogether, and it lies at an elevation of 10,778 feet above the sea-level. It is nearly 1,500 feet higher than the highest carriage road in Europe, that over the Stelvio Pass, and more than 3,500 feet higher than the Mont Cenis, St. Gothard, and Simplon tunnels. So well were the levels and lines kept that the difference at the junction was only ¾ inch, and of the line 2¾ inches, while the chainage was only 2.14 inches less than calculated. At one period 1,700 men were engaged on the works.

Unfortunately, the beautiful and impressive bronze statue of the Christ is not visible to passengers in the train, but it can easily be reached by coach or mule from Inca. It stands some 3,000 feet higher than Las Cuevas, and is situated on the dividing line between Argentina and Chili. It was the gift of a pious Buenos Aires lady, Señora César de Costa, and was erected as a monument to the signing of the peace treaty between the two countries.

The Pacific Railway has expended over £80,000 in snow protection for their line during the past two years, with the result that through traffic can be maintained throughout the severest winter with perfect safety.

The line brings Chili at least a fortnight nearer London, a great consideration in these days of commercial enterprise. British manufacturers are taking advantage of the fact, and that there is a growing demand in Chili for British goods is shown by the increasing number of representatives who favour this route. Previous to the opening of the railway passengers and goods had to travel by boat through the treacherous Straits of Magellan, a long and tedious journey. Now a well-appointed and comfortable train is entered at Buenos Aires, and thirty-eight hours later the traveller finds himself in Valparaiso or Santiago.

But the fortune of the Buenos Aires and Pacific Railway really lies in the V-shaped territory from Mendoza to Bahia Blanca and Buenos Aires. There is a great country still to be awakened in the foothills of the Andes. There are millions of acres on the pampas awaiting the plough and the coming of the cattle breeder. The Pacific Company cannot but go on and prosper. It is a matter of regret, however, that it has lost as general manager Mr. Guy Calthrop. In the handling of a complex railway system he has no superior. A strong man, physically and mentally, he has had rough hours during labour trouble. But he kept a steady nerve. He went out to Argentina with high reputation of his work on the Caledonian line; he has shown the capacity of a general in the development of traffic during the few years he has been in Argentina. But England called him to take the most responsible post in the railway world, the general managership of the London and North Western Company.

Now I come to the Great Southern Company, one of the oldest and one of the most famous lines on the South American continent. From "B.A." it extends southwards for 500 miles to Bahia Blanca. From there it shoots westwards for 348 miles to Neuquén, and an extension to the Chilian frontier is on its way. On behalf of the Government the company is carrying forward extensive irrigation works in the Neuquén territory which, when completed, will convert the valleys of the upper Rio Negro and Rio Neuquén, hitherto one of the least productive, into one of the most fertile regions of the country. The growth of the company, since it started in 1865 with a length of 71 miles, is worth noting. After 1865 the mileage grew progressively as follows: 1873, 145 miles; 1883, 472 miles; 1893, 1,406 miles; 1903, 2,404 miles; 1913, 3,641 miles. The lines actually in course of construction, or about to be commenced, represent some 670 miles. Thus it can be safely calculated that the mileage of the Great Southern Railway will, before long, exceed 4,300 miles. You get an appreciation of the zone served by the Southern by the comparative figures of the increase in its passenger traffic during the last five years: 1909, 16,865,200; 1910, 18,906,505; 1911, 22,231,112; 1912, 24,069,974; 1913, 27,454,719. Of these last figures, for 1913, it is significant that the suburban traffic is represented by 19,841,156, which shows the population that lives within reach of Buenos Aires.

Passenger traffic is, in fact, a main feature of the Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway. On the Monday following the Easter holidays in 1913 trains with no fewer than 102 sleeping coaches arrived at the company's termini in Buenos Aires. Of these, fifty were from the fashionable bathing resort at Mar del Plata. The special feature of this Mar del Plata service is, that during the season as many as three heavy trains, composed of sleeping cars, are run nightly, in addition to afternoon expresses, formed of luxurious parlour cars, which run three days a week. In 1913 35,964 return tickets were sold to this watering place 250 miles from Buenos Aires. In the same year parcels and excess baggage represented 291,608 tons, though it should be stated more than half this amount was for milk, butter, and cream. The number of tons of goods carried in 1909 was 4,852,379; in 1913 the tonnage was 7,977,663. Live stock carried in 1909 were 5,576,983, whilst in 1913 the number was 6,562,951. Fully 50 per cent. of the live stock received at the slaughter-houses for consumption in Buenos Aires, and by the freezing establishments for export to England in the form of frozen or chilled meat, is dispatched from southern stations. The bull that obtained the championship in 1913 at Palermo, and fetched the world-record price of £7,000, was born on Señor Pereyra Iraola's estate at Pereyra station on the Great Southern Railway.

Practically the whole of the zone served by the Great Southern Railway in the Province of Buenos Aires is adaptable to the growing of cereals generally, with the exception of maize, which is limited to the districts nearest Buenos Aires. The authorised capital of the Southern is £53,525,530, and that issued amounts to £48,981,530. The net receipts for 1913 (June 30th) amounted to £2,870,349, and the dividend for the year was 7 per cent., which has been maintained for the last fifteen years, being, indeed, as high as the law will permit. The company's rolling stock, comprising some 15,000 vehicles, was recently valued at £7,437,654. The general manager of the company is Mr. Percy Clarke, the doyen amongst English railway officials in Argentina, and a man of charming personality.

It is unnecessary for me to go through a catalogue of all that is being done by the various railroads in the Republic. But I must refer to the work being done by what is known as the "Farquhar group," an amalgamation of railways under the spirited enterprise of Mr. Percival Farquhar, a go-ahead North American who is chiefly responsible for the creation of the Argentine Railway Company, which is incorporated under the laws of the State of Maine, U.S.A. This company was formed a couple of years ago (July 12th, 1912) to group together various railways in order to obtain benefits of unified management, and provide increased railroad facilities in the northern districts of the Republic. Two of the principal railways which this company now control are the Central Cordoba and the Entre Rios lines. Also it has a controlling interest in a number of smaller companies. The biggest amalgamation effected by this company has been the purchase by the Cordoba Central Railway of the undertakings of the Cordoba and Rosario and Cordoba Central Buenos Aires Extension Lines; and the proposal at the time of writing is to create £23,000,000 worth of new stock, whilst £18,000,000 worth is to be issued to the holders of existing stock in the three companies. A good deal of reorganisation is in progress.

Although competition between the big lines is as severe as anywhere in the world, except within the United States, this movement in Argentina for amalgamation and agreement in regard to spheres of interest shows a disposition to put an end to fierce rivalry. Indeed, it is more than likely that within the next few years there will be more amalgamation and working agreements between the big companies.

CHAPTER XII

ROSARIO

It was not my fortune to see Rosario, one of the leading commercial cities in the Republic, under the most favourable circumstances. During the few days I was there the weather was all it ought not to have been – dull and rainy and cold – and the streets, except in a few central thoroughfares, morasses of mire.

It is a purely commercial town. It puts forward no claim to be artistic or cultured, and it has no pretensions to be a leader of fashion. All the men in Rosario are engaged in money-making. There are big offices, and the business men are at their desks early in the morning and remain late in the afternoon. Great railway lines converge upon Rosario, and along the front of the River Parana there are miles of goods sheds and wharves, with ships lying alongside into which the elevators pour their streams of wheat. There is the constant shunting of trains, the shrieking of cranes, and the swinging of derricks.

The workers are the best type of Latins, Italians from North Italy, or North Catalonian Spaniards or Basques. Other Latins do not get much of a chance in Rosario. There are a number of Englishmen, but they are swamped in the total. I made inquiries about the relative merits of English and Italian working men, and was told that the Englishmen are superior, two of them doing the work which it generally takes three Italians to accomplish. But it did not strike me, considering the high cost of living, that the workers in Rosario are highly paid from an English point of view. Commerce is frequently held up by strikes. Indeed, there is probably no place where strikes are so recurrent as in Rosario.

This is a town which came into existence a century ago as a sort of military outpost to fight the Indians. Half a century back it was little more than a village, and in 1870 it had a population of 21,000. To-day the inhabitants number 200,000. It is a great port for sending abroad wheat, maize, and linseed; indeed, its exports annually are about 5,000,000 tons. As the country north of Rosario is rapidly being colonised, and as the town is the up-river port capable of receiving ocean-going steamers, its continued growth is assured. Though, of course, I do not forget the gradual silting of the River Plate into which the Parana flows, and the restraint this is sure to put upon shipping in the future, Rosario is certain to go ahead. The day is not far distant when there will be extended railway communication between Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia; and, as all the lines will pass through Rosario, it will get the benefit. It is reported that Brazil has coal mines yet to be exploited, and if this takes place Argentina, which is much in need of coal, will be one of the principal markets.

I spent an interesting morning in the workshops of the Central Argentine Railway, which are situated here. They are extensive works, though most of the engines on the line are brought from England. The majority of the workmen, naturally enough, are Italians, though the men at the heads of departments are Englishmen. The goods yard of the Central Argentine Company is as large as that at Crewe, and is ever busy with the great freight cars coming in from the west and north. When I was there the railway station was being transferred to another part of the city so that passenger and goods traffic could be more expeditiously handled.

Though Rosario prides itself that it keeps its nose to the grindstone in the matter of money-making, it is not quite neglectful of other sides of life. There is a fine system of electric tramways. There are huge blocks of municipal buildings, and imposing banks and theatres; but the law courts, whilst having a fine exterior, suggested a certain shabbiness to me because of the weeds that were growing in the courtyards. There is the usual race-course, and close by there is the Parque Independencia. And, of course, there is a Plaza San Martin, whilst in other parts of the town is the Plaza San Lopez, and the Plaza Jewell, presented by an Englishman who made his fortune in the city. Some distance outside Rosario is the English suburb of Fisherton, and I noticed that the Englishmen had fallen into the Argentine practice of calling their houses after their wives – the Villa Elsie, the Villa Florence, the Villa Ethel, and so on. As might be expected, there is a golf course. In the city itself there is a Strangers' Club, of which most of the members are Englishmen.

An evidence of the prosperity of Rosario is the way in which land has increased in value. Plots which in 1885 could have been bought for 2s. 6d. a yard now fetch £200 a yard. On the outskirts of the town, where a few years back a bit of land on which to build a residence – say twenty yards by sixty yards – could have been obtained for £5, it cannot be obtained to-day for less than £150. I saw one stretch on the river front which was bought twenty years ago for £2,000 and sold last year for £40,000. Twenty miles from Rosario camp land which a dozen years ago could have been obtained for £10,000 the square league is not allowed to change hands to-day for less than £100,000 the square league.

With nightfall the Rosario people give themselves up to pleasure. Attached to the big hotel there is a huge saloon, and whilst men play dominoes and cards, music is provided by a band composed of Austrian girls. There is a great café chantant, and every night hundreds of people, men and their wives, sit at the little tables having meals, or partaking of beverages, whilst a band plays and comic singers perform, or a kinematograph entertainment is provided. I saw nothing at all in Rosario to suggest it was a place of culture. But it is a town throbbing with commercial activity, and when business is over the people seek nothing more than the lightest of entertainment.

CHAPTER XIII

CORDOBA AND ITS ATTRACTIONS

An old-time languorous atmosphere seems to hang round Cordoba. It is a city with eighty churches, and as it has a population of 80,000, I pride myself on my arithmetic that works it out to one church for every thousand inhabitants. It is named after Cordova, in Spain, was founded in 1504, and is the Oxford of the Argentine. Its university dates from 1666, and has a high reputation for learning in law and medicine.

Those old Spaniards who came pioneering down this way from Peru in their early days of conquest had a neat eye for the picturesque. Speaking generally, I would not place Argentina high as a land of beauty. But in the middle land there is a fine rib of mountains, the Sierra de Cordoba; and on a rise, so that it may be seen from afar, when the heat dances hazily there is something immaterial about Cordoba as though it were the city of a waking dream. See it, however, in the early morning, when the air is fresh and the gleam of the sun catches it sideways and the buildings are silhouetted against shadows, and you witness a picture which would enthral an artist.

By northern European standard it is not an ancient city. But as living beneath the sun brings early old age to men and women, so cities which have had a few centuries of constant sun glare get a drowsy mediævalism which sister cities in more temperate climes must have long ages to acquire. The aroma of the Church and of scholasticism permeates Cordoba. In many respects it is quite modern, with its big new hotel, where the band plays in the restaurant whilst you are dining, and its streets lit with electricity and electric tramcars jangling their way through the squares and plenty of taxi-cabs on the ranks.

But the tendency is to forget these, and in recollection of the place you think chiefly of the quiet in the quadrangle of the university, the calm of the great library, the weatherworn walls of the old churches and the dim lights of their interiors doing much to soften the tawdriness of the decorations. There is a good deal in the assertion occasionally made that the towns of recently developed countries lack individuality, distinction; that, with all their progress, they are more or less duplicates of each other. It is easy enough in Argentina to find evidence of this modern spirit in town planning. Yet I know of none of the newer countries where the towns have such a separate character as in Argentina.

Of course, there are raw townships of yesterday which have nothing to show but two wretched rows of badly built houses on each side of the railway track, just as you will find in the western parts of the United States and Canada. As Argentine towns grow they do not grow uniformly, as though they were designed by the same architect or were imitating one another. They show individuality. If you like, it may be just a desire to show off. Many municipalities are loaded with debt. But they will have their cities beautiful. When they have made a broad grass-plotted, tree-girt avenue right through the town to the railway station, and the station buildings are low and ugly and out of keeping with the rest of the town, and the railway authorities at Buenos Aires turn a deaf ear to the deputations which may wait upon them, you can safely bet that one of these nights the railway buildings will be consumed by fire, so that the company is compelled to erect a new station.

Because it is the oldest city in Argentina and has inhabitants with pedigrees, and because of the society attracted to it, Cordoba regards itself as the aristocratic centre of the Republic. In the neighbouring hills are sanatoria, like Jesu Maria, much favoured by the people of the plains who need a change.

Cordoba, like other places, is quite certain it has the best-dressed ladies. In a sedate sort of way there is a good deal of gaiety. On hot summer evenings a band plays in the square, where there is a statue of San Martin. There may be a town in Argentina which has not an equestrian statue of the Liberator from Spain. If so, I must have missed it. The statues are all facsimiles of the original, and there must be dozens of them. It is the one point on which all the towns agree; they must have a statue of San Martin on a prancing steed, and eternally pointing in the direction of the Andes. Once I unfortunately made an Argentine angry, for, being anxious to show me the beauties of his town, he sought my wishes as to what I desired to see, and I replied, "Anything you like, so long as you do not take me to see the statue of San Martin – I've seen him so often during the last month." The feathers were up at once. I smoothed them down by assuring him that we have very few statues of Wellington in England.

The Cordobians are fond of music and racing and gambling, and sitting in the cafés throwing the dice-box. There is a delightful theatre, the Rivera Indarte, built by the provincial Government. Opera companies which go to Buenos Aires are invited to come to Cordoba, and the authorities give a guarantee against loss. The proper thing is to buy a box, holding six persons, for the little season of ten performances. The cost of such a box is £150. The charge is a dollar for the entrada (entrance), which provides nothing except permission to enter the building. This entrada charge is like the charge for "attendance" in old-fashioned hotels in England, which is an excuse for sticking another eighteenpence a day on your bill so that you may be deceived into thinking you are paying six shillings for your room when you are really paying seven and sixpence. So at the opera in Cordoba, usually Italian, the lowest ticket is two dollars to be permitted to stand up, but you have already parted with one dollar to go in. Cordoba province, like the other provinces, thinks no small beer of itself. It rather resents receiving orders from the Federal Government sitting in Buenos Aires. Perhaps that is the reason the Argentine National Anthem is so seldom heard.

Students are attracted to Cordoba University from all over the country. Most of the professors have had experience of European universities, generally French. The library is extensive and varied. I handled some fine old Bibles, bound in sheepskin, relics of the early Spaniards. Also there is a remarkable collection of old maps, showing that the priests as they travelled this way were first-class geographers. Whatever literary sentiment there is in Argentina finds expression in Cordoba. Indeed, it is the natural meeting-place for men inclined to culture for its own sake. But it is by no means a sleepy hollow. It has several really good newspapers. There is a great export of lime. Being the centre of a big wheat area, much milling is done by modern electric appliance. Light and power are provided by an enterprising English company. There is a shoe factory, which turns out 2,500 pairs of footwear a day.