The Amazing Argentine Part 3

I travelled a good deal in the Republic, from Buenos Aires to Inca in the Andes, and from Tuc.u.man 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 gra.s.ses 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 suns.h.i.+ne 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 pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.s 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 princ.i.p.al reason is that they are the prey of the politicians. Const.i.tuencies 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 owners.h.i.+p 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CENTRAL ARGENTINE RAILWAY COMPANY'S GRAIN ELEVATORS AT BUENOS AIRES.]

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 s.p.a.ces 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 Tuc.u.man. 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 pa.s.sengers 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LATEST TYPE OF Pa.s.sENGER LOCOMOTIVE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LATEST TYPE OF DINING CAR.]

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 a.s.sist 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 G.o.d, 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 a.s.sisted pa.s.sages 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 a.s.sured, 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 st.u.r.diness 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 crus.h.i.+ng into towns for work, as is usual in Canada during the frozen months.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VIEW OF GRAZING LANDS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A DRINKING PLACE ON AN ESTANCIA.]

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 quant.i.ty. 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.

Of course, the middleman runs risk of little return if there is drought and a bad harvest, and, on the other hand, when he proceeds to sell the wheat he finds himself encompa.s.sed by a ring of four Jewish firms, who control the wheat market of the Argentine. The whole practice is vicious, and I cannot but think that before long the Government will have to take the matter in hand.

Admitting the exquisite climate, and the fertility of the soil, and Nature's quick response to light work, the lives of these "colonists" in the distant camp is sad. Men of the Basque country, the north of Spain, the north of Italy, they come from the homeland, where means of livelihood were spa.r.s.e, to this new land, where, although the chances are rather against them to secure independence, their material well-being is certainly better than in the Old Country. But they are ignorant people; they know nothing of, and so care nothing for, the refinements of life; their houses are not much better than kraals. They are removed by long distances from neighbours; they live on a featureless plain, and have no communication with the outer world; they cannot read, and books and newspapers are foreign to them. Their world is fringed by the horizon. A visit to the wayside station, where, maybe, one train a day pa.s.ses, is their excitement. There are no schools and no religious instruction. Their moral standard is low.

Many of these "colonists" take to farming with a minimum of practical knowledge. Yet, though I have just drawn a rueful picture, I would not have it thought there are no illuminating spots. A valuable work is being carried on in agricultural instruction. On several occasions I came across specially-built railway cars in which lecturers travel all over the Republic and freely give advice to the peons how to get most out of the soil. During the last seven years (since 1907) the Government has zealously appreciated the need for organising the agricultural and live-stock instruction. The work is not to be compared with the splendid agricultural colleges to be found all over the United States. The significant thing, however, is that the people of the Argentine--perfectly conscious of all the advantages of science, and with most of its best sons educated in Europe--have taken hold of this problem of how to train its population to get the best out of the soil.

So schools are being formed over the country where information can be obtained about the special productivity of particular districts, about the growing of gra.s.ses, the feeding and care of beasts, milk production, sugar-growing, cheese-making, market-gardening, fruit-rearing, and in far western Mendoza I came across a college that is making instructive experiments in viticulture.

Besides agricultural courses at the Universities, there is much done by way of University extension lectures; but instead of lectures about sea-power in the sixteenth century, or the relations.h.i.+p of Henry VIII.

to Rome, the lectures are on the breeding of cattle, the raising of maize, the sowing of alfalfa.

It was my fortune to meet many cultured and travelled Argentines, but, summing the people in a lump, and excluding the viciousness which trails behind the wealth of Buenos Aires, and also making allowance for the lack of that virility and perseverance of those strong men who are fighting the big battle in Canada, the thing which constantly confronted me was the fact that here in South America was a nation, born yesterday, thoroughly alive to the worth of its possessions, brusquely modern, content with nothing but the latest appliances and machinery and thoroughly determined that, in the contest amongst the widespread agricultural lands to supply food to the millions in crowded Europe, Argentina will not be satisfied with an inferior position.

In a subsequent chapter I will deal with what has already been accomplished in this field. Here, however, I limit myself to pointing out that Argentina is increasing her capabilities with a purely practical education. Men who can neither read nor write, but have come under the influence of these itinerant schools, can talk with scientific knowledge about their trade of food producing, be it meat or cereals.

Now another step is being made, and I trust with happy results in view of the unfortunate position of the "colonists." So successful has been the agricultural instruction during the past half dozen years, that the next thing is to develop the commercial spirit so that the farmer may have some chance of getting a fair return for his labour. Free lectures are given on the business side of agriculture. Then, attached to the schools are special buildings for experiments; and boarded pupils, the sons of men who understand the money value of knowledge, are given a thorough training. So that all may benefit there are free scholars.h.i.+ps, and I found that preference is given to compet.i.tors who come from districts, suitable for a special industry, where schools have not yet been established.

Anyone who visits the school for viticulture in Mendoza, for agriculture and live stock in Cordoba, and for arboriculture and sugar-making in Tuc.u.man--and I saw all three--comes away nothing less than amazed at the way these transplanted Latins, away south of the Equator and across six thousand miles of ocean, are making headway--and the start only begun a few years ago. There is the real spirit of enthusiasm combined with an optimism which to a man from a staid old country seems exaggerated until, seeing what has been done, imagination is allowed to jump freely into the future. At Mendoza, nestling at the foot of the Andes and reminiscent of a town in Tuscany, where the whole countryside is covered with vineyards and wine is being made to supply millions of wine drinkers in the country--for the Argentine peasant takes wine with his breakfast--experiments are made with the best known vines from Europe on a farm of sixty-seven acres, so that grapes suitable to the soil may be matured. At Cordoba the school has 445 acres, and investigation is made to secure earlier and higher yields, and with special attention to obtaining varieties which have powers of resisting drought. The same sort of thing goes on at Tuc.u.man. The sugar industry is increasing at astonis.h.i.+ng speed. Many men with scant practical knowledge are attracted to it. The school gives them instruction and will send members of the technical staff to the sugar factories and distilleries to give a.s.sistance. Facts like these argue that Argentina is a country really to be reckoned with, and is not to be dismissed--as I have heard it dismissed in England, even amongst those who consider themselves educated--as a rubbishy South American Republic, whose only crop is revolutions.

All over the Republic "regional schools" are being set up to provide instruction, not in general agricultural subjects, but in regard to the special requirements of the locality--for Argentina varies in climate from tropical in the north to stern cold in the south; dairying, with a model dairy, at Belle Ville; fruit culture at San Juan; forestry in the Benitz colony. A scheme has been devised to equip Argentina with agricultural knowledge by means of courses for children and adults, travelling lecturers, information bureaus, co-operative experiments, regional shows, encouragement of agricultural societies, organisation of regional agricultural experts and military farms. Further, the National Government have done an enormous service in providing irrigation works in regions where the rainfall is uncertain.

It has to be admitted that some areas are subject to drought, and this and other evils have to be taken into consideration when reviewing the agricultural growth of a country like Argentina, which lives by its produce, and which in 1912 exported 36,000,000 worth of live-stock products and 53,000,000 worth of agricultural products. Given good years, the _estanciero_ in average country makes 30 per cent. on the year. He can afford to have one bad year in three and yet be prosperous.

But although districts suffer, the area of the country is so vast that losses are swamped in general prosperity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The irons are heated by fire made of bones of dead cattle.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Putting cattle through the chute.

BRANDING CALVES ON AN ESTANCIA.]

As the older countries of the world concern themselves with national defence, Argentina has established a Department of Agricultural Defence, chiefly to fight the plague of locusts, which can eat out a whole district in a single night. I recall in Cordoba Province seeing in the distance what looked like a cloud of smoke. It was a storm of locusts, so dense as it pa.s.sed that midday was reduced to twilight. The locust blights the land--it is the enemy. The locust is the thing which makes the farmer shudder. When it comes it not only devours every blade of gra.s.s within miles, but it lays its eggs in untold millions. The pest has to be destroyed. The Government readily a.s.sists localities to destroy the ova. The route of the swarms from the tropical north is known. The telegraph tells of the progress. When they land, the countryside turns out and catches them by the cartload. Sometimes the district in which they have settled is fired. The whole zone where eggs have been planted is ploughed. Animals are driven forth to trample the pest. The Government has in its possession over 20,000,000 yards of metallic barriers to make a line of defence, and when a swarm is penned it is suffocated, burnt, or trampled. The Government not only has its inspectors out, is ever ready to meet and repel the locust invasion from Brazil and Bolivia with suitable appliances, but gives financial a.s.sistance to those who help in the extermination. The Argentines are determined to stop this pest. The way they are setting about the work is evidence of their earnestness.

The point I specially desire to make, however, is that farming in Argentina is not all casual, but is becoming a developed national industry. There are many things to criticise about the Government; there is maladministration and there is peculation. But that so much has been accomplished, notwithstanding these drawbacks, accentuates the wonders of progress.