The Amazing Argentine Part 14

Meanwhile, an annual increase of 1,000,000 tons in the shipping trade of Buenos Aires has left Argentina, like Oliver Twist, asking for more. The cattle-breeding industry responds to each stimulus given by the provision of more refrigerating vessels. The supply of meat is always greater than the means of distribution. Already America is looking to the Argentine for meat to augment her own supplies. It is the only country to which she can turn with confidence. Other parts of the world have for years been fed from here. The dependence of the outer world upon the meat and cereals of Argentina almost suggests that the country was pre-ordained to be the larder of the human family.

For the hunter and traveller, Argentina and its bordering lands have their full share of attractions. The plains and mountains of the Andean land are the haunts of the jaguar, puma, wild cat, and various breeds of wild deer. Its birds include the vulture, hawk, albatross, penguin, snipe, bustard, partridges of several kinds, as well as singing birds in great variety. In fact, many of the birds of the mountain and forest are still uncla.s.sified, and are the study of ornithologists and naturalists from all parts of the world. The martinetta, a big grouse, brings into sport something of a novelty. It is slow to fly, and is often caught by snares into which it is driven. For variation, however, it is forced to take wing by means of a rope dragged by riders across the path. The rope pulls the martinetta off its feet. As soon as it flies the third huntsman behind the rope fires. Three are necessary to form a party, and the turn with the gun is arranged.

A peculiar type of llama is found in these parts. In shape the long neck and head resemble those of the giraffe and camel respectively. The body is like that of a donkey and the legs are as graceful as those of a deer. Their voracity makes them unpopular with sheep breeders, except for the value of their skins, for it has been estimated that one guanaco--as they are called--will eat as much gra.s.s as nine sheep. The beautiful humming bird is found in parts of the Argentine as well as in the Andes. Many of the vultures are also to be seen. The condor is a bird of such immense size as to be worthy of special mention. From wing to wing it measures 9 feet. To hatch its eggs it seeks the remote crags of the Andes, and has been found at an alt.i.tude of 20,000 feet.

In Patagonia we are able to revive memories of the schoolroom, and to see how far juvenile fancy has exaggerated the stature of what the teacher said were the biggest men in the world. Their actual height is from 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet 4 inches, but their stature is rendered more impressive on account of their huge arms and ma.s.sive chests. As the name implies, and as the school-reader reminded us, the Patagonians have huge flat feet. Their adoption of such civilised habiliments as boots would mean a revolution in the standards of the boot-making industry.

Among travellers the Patagonian has a good reputation for honesty, amiability, and kindness to his womenfolk. The people have no idols, but believe in witchcraft.

Patagonia is almost virgin land, and Santa Cruz is, perhaps, the most dreary region of the country. It is considered, however, to have a future, and some promising settlements have already been established.

The Patagonian pastures have not as yet been bothered about by Argentines, because they are still wanting more workers to develop the enormous northern areas.

The force of the alliance between good government and good health is ever present to the traveller in South America. The continent has witnessed the greatest ravages of leprosy. It is significant that the greater number of lepers are found where governments are unstable and administration uncertain. In Chili and Argentina, where government is something more than a symbol, lepers are relatively few, and are practically disappearing. Farther north the position is worse, and again there comes the a.n.a.logy between bad government and disease. Venezuela, Colombo, and Ecuador, where the life of no government is certain for above twenty-four hours, are among the worst areas of leprosy. Complete segregation is the only effective method of coping with the disease.

This can only be accomplished with firm and effective administration.

CHAPTER XX

TUc.u.mAN AND THE SUGAR INDUSTRY

It was my good fortune to visit Tuc.u.man in the northern area of Argentina during the height of the sugar-cane harvest. Here one was about as near the centre of South America as could be desired. The vegetation was wildly luxuriant, and seemed to have lapped over into Argentina from the jungles of Brazil. Here, also, the Latin colonists seemed to have been left behind, and one ran into a strangely mixed people, mostly native Indian in origin, but with a tincture in their veins from the Spanish settlers of centuries ago, together with a subsequent negro admixture.

I had looked forward to visiting a tropical town, of long streets of mud shanties heavily thatched, and with innumerable palm trees waving their plumes overhead. This kind of thing was to be found in the suburbs, where the Spanish-negro-Indians wore big, rough-made, straw-plaited hats, and their dusky mates, in bright garments, gossipped in the shadows, whilst their prolific offspring--often stark naked--gambolled in the sand. But Tuc.u.man itself is much like other Argentine towns, for it has its plaza and statues and public gardens, its imposing houses and hotels and restaurants, its tramcars and electric light.

Tuc.u.man has played its part in the history of the Republic. It was here that Independence was proclaimed in 1810, when the overlordship of Spain was repudiated; and it was here that, after much fighting, the treaty of peace was signed on July 9th, 1816. The house in which this took place was a modest building, not much bigger than a cottage. Sentiment prevented it being swept away before the rush for improvement, and so it has been left standing. But about it has been erected an imposing structure. Here is a house within a house; and a stout dame conducts the visitor into a gaunt room where Argentina's first parliament a.s.sembled; where there are paintings of fierce-eyed national heroes, frescoes depicting the proclamation of Independence, the chair where the first president of the Republic sat, and in which the visitor is invited to sit; and there is the customary visitors' book to be signed.

Tuc.u.man vies with Cordoba in having amongst its residents some of the real old Spanish aristocracy of Argentina. Indeed, Tuc.u.man puts forth the claim that it has the most beautiful women in South America.

Certainly at the hour of promenade, when the sun begins to dip and before nightfall comes swiftly, and the people take to walking amongst the orange trees in the Plaza, or sauntering along the main thoroughfares inspecting the attractions in the shop windows, there is no difficulty in imagining that this is a bit of Madrid instead of being a little-visited town tucked away in the north of Argentina. Several enthusiastic residents a.s.sured me that their ladies were as close to the fashions as Paris itself. I am no authority on these matters; but I can say that the womenfolk appeared as well garbed as they are in the capitals of Europe. Along the clean streets whizzed expensive motor-cars. Before the restaurants were the little round marble-topped tables with which most of us are acquainted in European cities; and here men sat and drank their amer piquant and puffed their cigarettes, whilst the band played music, ragtime and other, with which we are so familiar at home.

The main avenue, still in the making, promises to be a gorgeous thoroughfare one of these days. There is a casino, a theatre (the Odeon), a palace for the bishop, barracks, a hospital, a brewery which cost 250,000 to build, and a "Savoy Hotel," where there was on sale whisky "as drunk in the House of Lords," and where one's admiration was only checked by finding the telephone system defective.

Tuc.u.man is the centre of the sugar-growing industry. For many miles around the country is covered with sugar plantations, and the railway companies have little belt lines running through the cultivated area to facilitate the gathering of the crop. When I was there in 1913 the harvest had been the most prolific within knowledge. In places the line was blocked with wagons piled high with the cane, whilst in several quarters I heard grumbling that there was not a sufficiency of trucks to cope with the trade.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A HISTORIC BUILDING: "CASA INDEPENDENCIA" AT TUc.u.mAN.]

One day, accompanied by several friends, I made an extensive motor-car trip to the sugar plantations. As soon as we got beyond the town, and upon the broad road which stretched as far as eye could reach until it was lost in the shimmer of sunshine, we experienced the inconvenience of a bad way. With all its excellences, Argentina, as I have before remarked, has as bad roads as you will find in the world. There had been no rain for months, and our route was across miles of powdery earth. We sank into it almost to the axle. We churned up dust so that soon we were smothered in it. Our faces were almost as grimy as though we had been in a coalpit. Gaucho hors.e.m.e.n pranced past us in clouds of dust. When we overtook an ox-drawn wagon it was like pushing through a fog of dust. On either side the vegetation was profuse and rank, and the terrific heat of the tropics filled the air with a strong, nauseating aroma.

When we were in the sugar-cane district we saw hundreds of tawny-skinned men cutting the cane. Armed with an instrument which seemed to be half knife and half butcher's chopper, the peon seized the top of a cane, cut it off near the root, gave it a swing in the air, and with rapid slashes removed the protruding leaves, and then pitched the stalk on one side, where a heap was lying to be gathered by women and children and carried to the waiting wagons.

Twice we halted to watch the dexterity of the cutters and to visit the mud huts. These were picturesque but not pretty. They looked like disreputable brick-kilns, and although possessed of a door, were deficient in windows. The interior was dark, but most of the family spend their time out of doors under the trees, where they have their fires and prepare mate, the native tea, which is served in a sh.e.l.l and sucked through a tube. Whenever the natives have nothing else to do you are sure to find them drinking mate.

Around Tuc.u.man are twenty-five sugar mills, and it is reckoned they produce 200,000 tons of sugar, of which between 60,000 and 70,000 tons are exported. We went to the fine mills at San Pablo belonging to Nouges Brothers, and the senior partner was good enough to show me over the place, so that I could inspect the whole process, from the arrival of the cane until the sugar is loaded in sacks ready to be sent to Buenos Aires.

The stalks, as high as a man, are thrown into a machine which literally chews them up. As they pa.s.s through heavy rollers they crunch and crack, and yield their juice which runs in a nasty brown fluid into a trough.

Again the mashed-up cane is subjected to further squeezings between rollers, until practically the last drop of the syrup is squeezed out.

The treacle-like stuff is run into big basins beneath which furnaces are blazing, and is kept at a simmer until the sugar reaches the consistency of dough. After that it is sluiced into highly heated steel cups, which are constantly whirling.

It is interesting to stand by in the sickly-sweet atmosphere and watch how, in the constant spinning and evaporation from the heat, the stuff loses much of its brown appearance and becomes, when thoroughly dried, like the cheap brown sugar as we know it at home. It is further refined in other hot chambers until it is quite white. Then men with sacks catch the stream of sugar as it rushes from the mouth of the refinery. Much of it is spilt, and the men are up to their boots in sugar. But the bags are quickly filled, pushed on one side, sewn up, hastened on lorries to waiting carts, which, when loaded, convey the freight to the railway wagons close by. Senor Nouges told me that at that time his firm was turning out 175 tons of sugar a day.

The sugar-cane must have plenty of sun and water. The rivers I saw during harvest time were miserable, shallow streams, meandering their way through what looked like a broad boulder-strewn bed of what once had been a wide stream. I was there, however, in the dry season, but was told that in the rainy season these streams are increased a thousandfold in volume, are frequently a quarter of a mile wide, and, when the torrents are heavy, overflow their banks and inundate the land.

Irrigation is carried to a high point, so that in times of flood the waters of the rivers can be conveyed many miles and utilised in providing moisture to the cane.

It has only been in comparatively recent years that the possibilities of the extensive region of North Argentina, of which Tuc.u.man is the centre, in regard to sugar have been realised. There is the initial expense of clearing the ground of jungle, and providing irrigation. Once, however, this has been done, and the cane planted, a paying crop is obtained the first year. The same roots grow useful stalks for three or four years, and then comes the process of gradually planting new roots and removing the old ones so that the same soil can be made productive. Weeds are numerous, and in the early months of growth these have to be constantly removed, first of all to prevent their smothering the young shoots, and secondly to give the cane all the nutriment there is in the soil. There is also the danger of invasion by locusts, and the occasional possibility in the cold months--say about May and June--of frost doing injury to the saplings. Allowing, however, for these disadvantages, the advance in the sugar industry in Argentina during the last dozen years has been nothing short of amazing. Still, I could not help feeling that the industry is only in its infancy. As soon as the foreigner appreciates what northern Argentina can do--at present most of the sugar growing is in the hands of Spanish-Argentines--there will certainly be enormous development. One of the things which will appeal to the foreign capitalist who takes up sugar growing on an extensive scale is that there is a quick return on the money invested in development.

Though Tuc.u.man is the capital of the sugar growing interest, it may be said there are plenty of areas equally favourable for raising the cane.

Sugar growing at Tuc.u.man began about thirty years ago, long before the railway ever reached the place, and to meet purely local demands; because in those days the transport of imported sugar, as of other goods, by cart was expensive. When the railway put Tuc.u.man into near communication with other parts of the Republic, the possibilities of a great trade were at once recognised. Tuc.u.man sugar, however, could not in those days compete, either in quality or price, with that which came from other countries. It was, therefore, decided to give encouragement to Argentine sugar growing by a tariff on sugar which came from across sea. As one who favours the saving of a struggling industry in a home country from being strangled by vigorous foreign compet.i.tion, I believe this was the right thing to do. Sugar growing bounded ahead. Not many years elapsed before the sugar growers became a powerful combination, with much influence on the Government. The result was that, whilst at the start the duty on imported sugar was small, it was gradually increased until it became prohibitive. Therefore at the present time very little foreign sugar comes into the country, and the Argentine industry has gone ahead in a remarkable manner.

Mr. N. L. Watson, in his publication "The Argentine as a Market,"

describes how Tuc.u.man became a veritable El Dorado. Two years sufficed to give a net return four times as great as the capital invested. As a natural consequence, labour and capital flowed into the sugar districts.

Lawyers deserted their professions, workmen their tools, to throw themselves with a regular fever into an occupation so full of promise.

Works sprang up as if by magic, palaces were constructed to house the staffs, capital was lavished on the industry by individuals and banking houses alike. While fortunes were being created in the cultivation of the sugar-cane, orchards, orange crops, pasturage, and arable land were being either transformed or neglected.

Something like a trust has been formed amongst the sugar growers, with the object of maintaining prices. But public opinion is becoming so p.r.o.nounced that, whilst there is no disposition to let the foreigner come in and undersell the native production, the tariff should be reduced in order that there may be more compet.i.tion between the native and outside growers, with a slight advantage always given to the Argentine grower. The Republic is quite capable of growing all the sugar its inhabitants may require; but fair compet.i.tion from the sugar of other countries will do much to regulate prices.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STATUE OF SAN MARTIN AT TUc.u.mAN.]

CHAPTER XXI

THE INDUSTRIAL SIDE OF THE REPUBLIC

The main energies of Argentina must for some time be devoted to her most obvious source of wealth. Yet it would be unwise to neglect a consideration of her industrial possibilities. Naturally she is anxious to supply herself with the commodities essential to daily life and comfort. But up to the present the Argentine has relied chiefly upon the exchange of its products, even for commodities which might be produced at home. This is due to the tendency common to new countries of going in for the "big deal." In this sense the agricultural industry has still a long journey to go. Intensive culture has so far not become a necessity.

Extensive culture has yielded such good profits that no impulse has been given to the full exploitation of Argentina's hidden resources. This partly explains why the casual observer is confronted with the apparent anomaly of vegetables, fruit, eggs, and other foodstuffs being dear in an agricultural country.

It is on the lines of finishing her existing industries, attending to by-products as well as main products, that the foundations of Argentina's industrial future will best be laid. The immediate obstacle is the scarcity of labour. The essential requirements already exist, a good climate, excellent means of communication, a growing population, an open Custom House for most of the machinery and implements required for national industries, and a stable credit.

Few countries have been able to inaugurate home industries under more favourable auspices. Nothing can deprive Argentina of her agricultural eminence. But how she will fare when embarking upon the more uncertain career of a home manufacturer depends upon many things. Necessity is already driving Argentina seriously to face the problem of producing for herself her more obvious needs. The comparatively high cost of living is a growing trouble. Infant though she may be industrially, Argentina has already experienced the evils of industrial unrest. The princ.i.p.al manifestations have been in Buenos Aires, which, in addition to being the port and the centre of national activities, has been the storm centre of the rush to exploit her resources. It is the pulse of the Republic. Like other great cities, it is crying out against the diminishing value of the dollar.

Argentina's readiness for home manufactures is an urgent problem confronting the Government. The Government wants a more all-round development of the country's resources. Interwoven with this problem are important considerations: a more equable distribution of the population; the provision of more centres for the exchange of commodities; the relation between taxes for revenue and protective tariffs; the selection of what industries are to be established at an economic profit; the extent to which foreign manufacturers can be induced to start their industries within the Republic.

So far, the only industries that have continued with success are those producing articles difficult of transport, or of an expensive character.

With a greater mobility of trade in the country, and a more scientific manipulation of the tariff, there is no reason why Argentina should not provide herself with many of the things which to-day furnish the labour agitator with opportunities for tirades against "costly living." Backed by agricultural wealth, and supported by splendid railway facilities, Argentina should be able to make advance on particular lines. Take wool as an ill.u.s.tration. Argentina produces more than sufficient for her own requirements, and yet she obtains woollen goods from other countries. Is it to be taken as final that the absence of coal in the country makes the development of woollen industries at home an economic impossibility?

It is not, perhaps, so much a question of labour and initiative as the absence of natural advantages.

It is necessary to look farther afield than Buenos Aires in considering the chances of a new industry. The concentration of trade in the capital has probably been a hindrance. The congestion of all interests, commercial, political, and social, in "B.A." has caused land to increase enormously in value, an important consideration in setting up factories.

In turn, other charges are correspondingly increased. Trade rises and falls according to the season. There is less stability for the worker, more fluctuations for the trader.

But, with railways linking up the interior with the coast, there is now no necessity for the drama of Argentina's commerce to be confined to a single theatre. There must be more centres of exchange, fresh districts for production and manufacture. If the auxiliary industries to corn growing and cattle raising were better fostered there would be no necessity for inland towns to go to Buenos Aires for vegetables, eggs, cheese, b.u.t.ter, and poultry. The market garden, the dairy, the poultry farm, the orchard, and the auxiliary factories would pour their products into the provincial centres. Local needs would be met locally. The surplus would be sent on with the grain and the cattle to the markets at Buenos Aires.

These, after all, are probably the safest lines upon which a new country can travel in her march to greater economic independence. First the purely agricultural; then the by-products of agriculture as a supplement; then gradually the establishment of whatever manufactures are practicable and profitable. For the present Argentina has greater need for cheaper eatables than for cheaper motor-cars.

Countries doing a big trade with the Argentine are beginning to see the force of providing goods on the spot. The crowding of agents in the princ.i.p.al towns has increased compet.i.tion to a point at which the next move by certain compet.i.tors must be in the direction of producing in the country or losing the trade entirely. This will be all the better for Argentina. She has long had justifiable cause for complaint against those who are sent to Buenos Aires and other parts to barter for her trade. A well-worn lament in the reports of the British Consul concerns the English trader's lack of adaptability to the peculiar conditions of Argentina. Mention is made of quotations in English, the sending of representatives unacquainted with the language and business terms of the country, the adherence to methods applicable only to England.

On the other hand, the British exporter has grumbled at economic conditions calling for long and sometimes exaggerated credit; the taxes levied on commercial travellers; the difficulty of dealing direct with customers. Between the two points of view is the fact that commercial enterprise has stopped with the arrival of trade representatives in Buenos Aires.