Argentina Part 10

IMPORTED STALLION, "DIAMOND JUBILEE," LATE PROPERTY OF H.M. KING EDWARD VII.]

Such a rough sketch of the outward life of Buenos Aires as the above necessarily gives a very inadequate image of the great and busy city, for what is received on hearsay impresses the mind more faintly than what has been seen with the eyes. It is a city of an unusual type, for it is very Spanish, but it is entirely without Spanish sleepiness; indeed, bustle and stir are perhaps its chief characteristics. There is great wealth and the love of display is also great, and doubtless, like Paris, it exercises a dangerous fascination on the people at large, who are apt to think that there is no profit or pleasure anywhere except at Buenos Aires. It occupies in Argentina a more important position than does Paris in France, and probably the development of Rosario and Bahia Blanca will have a good effect in modifying its pretensions. It is a very magnificent city.

FOOTNOTES:

[75] "An Account," &c., pp. 328-9.

[76] De Bougainville, who visited it in 1767, says the town had twenty thousand inhabitants of all colours. He comments upon the lowness of the houses and says that the houses usually had s.p.a.cious gardens--a great contrast to the modern city. ("Voyage autour du Monde," p. 33.)

[77] "History of Spanish America," p. 274.

[78] Head, "Rough Notes," p. 30.

[79] "The Voyage of the _Beagle_," chap. vi.

[80] Mansfield, "Paraguay, Brazil, and the Plate," pp. 128, 136, 138.

CHAPTER XIII

ARGENTINE LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY

Difficult as it may have been to describe Buenos Aires, it is still more difficult to describe the people. Of all the men and women who reside many years in foreign parts few gain more than a superficial knowledge of those with whom they come in daily contact, for the qualities necessary to gain such knowledge are very rare and their exercise is difficult and often inconvenient. If, then, old residents learn little, the hasty visitor is at a much greater disadvantage, and especially in the case of a Spanish nation, for Spain has a touch of Orientalism, which tends to seclusion in family life.

In Argentina, as elsewhere, the ladies of the better-cla.s.s families do not appear freely in public, although the old-fas.h.i.+oned principles, which did not allow them to go shopping without an escort, have been somewhat relaxed. But the English or North American comrades.h.i.+p between man and woman is quite absent, nor do women attempt to compete with men in business or games. As is well known, the family in Spanish or French nations fills a much larger s.p.a.ce in the life of the individual than is the case with England or the United States. The family exercises a more watchful care over its young members, who on reaching maturity do not slip away as easily as is the case with Anglo-Saxons; indeed, they hardly form fresh families, but rather seem to supersede the older members and become themselves the heads. Under such a system it is natural that considerable supervision is exercised over the women, but the marriage usage is less rigorous than in France, and the unions are rather of affection than arrangement; the practice may, perhaps, be described as a mean between that of England and France. South American views as to the ethics of relations between men and women differ very widely from ours, and a discussion of the subject would be unprofitable. The Argentine women have a reputation for beauty and they dress very well, but, though graceful and attractive, they cannot compare in fairness with their sisters of Peru.

The kindness of the elders to children is an admirable trait, and it is rare to see harshness or ill-treatment of the little ones, which are such distressingly common sights in English streets, but, at the same time, the tendency is pushed too far, and the spectacle of tiny children at very late hours supping at restaurants must, at the risk of incurring the reproach of insular prejudice, be p.r.o.nounced unedifying. It can hardly be beneficial to the children themselves.

The young Argentine would certainly be the better for more discipline, and English residents are, for that reason, disposed to make any sacrifice to send their children home to be educated.

The Argentines are fond of festivals and religiously keep the chief holy days. Not long ago the carnival was celebrated with much licence, but it is now becoming insignificant, and it can hardly be regretted that an occasion for much horseplay and even crime is waning.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAR DEL PLATA.]

Dancing, masqued b.a.l.l.s, and gaieties of all kinds are, of course, extremely popular, and for the ordinary evening entertainment the cinematograph seems to hold the field almost without a rival. In up-country towns the larger cafes have fine cinematographs, which are viewed free by all who pay for refreshments, and the most exciting adventures are portrayed with wonderful vividness. In Mendoza the enthusiasm is so great that some cafes, which have insufficient accommodation for the plant, stretch a sheet across the princ.i.p.al thoroughfare, and, arranging chairs and tables in front, invite their patrons to see the show. This practice of bringing the show to the spectators to be viewed at their leisure and in comfort certainly appears more reasonable than ours, which is to drive people to uncomfortable music-halls and deny to the public-house, the proper place for recreation and refreshment, all attractions except such as are alcoholic.

It is probable that the life in country towns is somewhat dull. A horse can be bought and kept fairly cheaply and, in general, the country affords good riding, but there is little shooting or hunting.

Every considerable town has a nice Club and the English members are numerous, coming in every evening to drink a whiskey-peg after tennis in Anglo-Indian fas.h.i.+on; but there must be considerable lack of variety. It would be desirable for Provincial Governments or private individuals to encourage rational diversions, for, as before remarked, the tendency to concentrate in Buenos Aires is dangerous. Besides physical exercises, such inst.i.tutions as literary societies, debating clubs, lectures, and the like would be very salutary, both from the valuable training they afford and the opportunity for foreigners and natives to mix together for their common advantage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RACECOURSE, LA PLATA.]

It is difficult to avoid feeling that among the English who live in Argentina there is a good deal of discontent. While admiring the country they do not seem very fond of it, and although their relations with the people are friendly, they do not appear to live on such terms of intimacy with them as is the case in Chile, for example. There is probably danger of materialistic views of life growing up; the Argentine is so busy in laying up treasure that he has little time for ama.s.sing more important possessions. An Englishman at Mendoza remarked: "These people have nothing to talk about; it's all _uva, uva_" (grape, which is the staple industry of Mendoza). The fact is that in a new country the population is too small for the manifold interests that are required to make up a rich national life. In some new countries they elect to lounge and eschew all hard work and, in certain cases, the people, though indolent, are cultivated. In Argentina the people are hard workers, but they have neglected the spiritual side of life. At Buenos Aires a beginning is being made to enlarge the circle of interests, and it would be well if humanising efforts were made at all provincial centres.

As happens in all money-making countries, there are many examples of the acquisition of wealth to an amount out of all proportion to the owner's capacity for using it. Some rich Argentines buy palaces and convert them into pigstyes, and at pretentious restaurants it is common to see persons who in appearance and manners are altogether unsuited to their surroundings. On the other hand, the cla.s.s of rich and refined men, with whom luxury loses half its evil by losing all its grossness, is rapidly increasing, and when time has been found for intellectual culture it will, no doubt, make great advances. Those who have had the privilege of being admitted into Argentine families will bear testimony to their refinement and kindliness.

There is also the life of the Pampa, of which the princ.i.p.al feature is the Gaucho.[81] This picturesque person has probably more Indian than Spanish blood in his veins, but he is a staunch son of Argentina and supplies his country with excellent cavalry. With a complexion of a light coffee colour, wearing a soft hat, a blanket slit to admit his head, white breeches, and brightly coloured shoes, he has been called by a French writer the Gascon of South America. He will not work in the cities or cultivate the land; he is a horseman and stock-rider.

His favourite food is carne c.u.m cuero--meat cooked with the hide--and his delight is in that life of the open plain under the open sky, of which Darwin felt the charm. He, indeed, has given an excellent description of the Gaucho. The Gaucho has played an important part in the building up of Argentina, though he himself cares little for politics and const.i.tutions. Before the Revolution he created the cattle industry, which has always been a main source of wealth to the country, and in the revolutionary wars he shared in the triumphs of the Creoles. Though rather too fond of brawling and gambling, he belongs to that singularly attractive type which is being rapidly pushed into the background with the growth of town industries. He has his own rude poetry and loves to sing his Pampa ballads to the accompaniment of the guitar. He seems to have absorbed the poetry of his surroundings, as was occasionally the case with Australian stock-riders, and in the Pampa the _payador_--a kind of troubador--is held in great honour. He figures at the fetes as an improviser, and he and his fellows are, in approved Sicilian fas.h.i.+on, "_cantare pares et respondere parati_." Many of the ballads are, of course, unwritten, but some _payadors_ leave the Pampas and become authors, and thus a certain number of the wild songs have been translated into print, but it can hardly be said that the cultured _payadors_ have been as successful in their work as Sir Walter Scott was with Border minstrelsy. Jose Hernandez long ago published an interesting little collection of this kind--"El Gaucho Martin Fierro."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PAMPAS.]

The Gaucho is as hospitable as the Arab of the desert, and, like him, has the sense of humour and the frank, bold courtesy which is generally found in the desert-ranger. The modesty of his dwelling--a mud hut with a few boards for furniture--contrasts with the bravery of his equipment, for besides wearing gay colours he favours silver stirrups and as much of the precious metal as he can obtain for the adornment of his bridle, and though he seldom employs money, he always is able to satisfy his simple wants. It is inevitable that as settlements extend the Gauchos will dwindle, but it would be sad if they disappeared from the Pampas altogether. The greater part of Argentina has been won from the Indians by their efforts; they have borne the burden and heat of the day in making the nation, and they will still be the mainstay of their country when she encounters trouble. The luxuries of town life are already too attractive to the young Argentine, and the Gaucho gives a valuable example of the simple and strenuous life.

FOOTNOTE:

[81] A suggested derivation is from the corruption of an Arabic word, _i.e._, _Chaoucho_, which in Seville is applied to a cowherd.

CHAPTER XIV

RELIGION--EDUCATION--JOURNALISM AND LITERATURE

Very few writers upon Argentina refer to the subject of religion at all, and those who do give very scanty information. There are in existence several good-sized works which make not the faintest allusion to the Church. And yet one would have thought that the subject possessed some general importance, or, at any rate, that in a daughter State of Spain and one of the great fields of Jesuit labour there was room for a few remarks upon the relations of the Church to the State and people, and also upon the general religious and moral conditions of Argentina.

The Spanish conquerors of South America were zealous crusaders, as eager to add subjects to the Kingdom of Christ as to add territory to the estates of their earthly sovereign. During the process of conquest they displayed few Christian virtues, but in the Plate districts, where they were not demoralised by l.u.s.t of gold, their proceedings were relatively good, and, in general, when Spanish America was settled, the masters were anxious to do their duty by their servants according to their lights and if they were negligent in attending to the religious and material welfare of the Indians, their negligence was speedily rebuked by the home authorities. One of the conditions of holding land was an undertaking to educate the Indians and teach them Christianity. The wise and good Las Casas laid down on the subject of the conversion and treatment of the Indians Thirty Propositions,[82] two of which may be given in substance: "The means for establis.h.i.+ng the Faith in the Indies should be the same as those by which Christ introduced His religion into the world--mild, peaceable, and charitable; humility; good examples of a holy and regular way of living, especially over such docile and easy subjects; and presents bestowed to win them.

Attempts by force of arms are impious, like those of Mahometans, Romans, Turks, and Moors; they are tyrannical, and unworthy of Christians, calling out blasphemies; and they have already made the Indians believe that our G.o.d is the most unmerciful and cruel of all G.o.ds."

The rough Spanish soldiers of fortune, as might have been expected, recked little of such principles, and some of the priests were little better than their flock, for Father Valverde is said to have instigated Pizarro to the treacherous and cruel arrest of Atahuallpa.

But the principles adopted both by spiritual and temporal powers were those of justice and mercy, as far as the circ.u.mstances permitted, and thus there was implanted in the new settlements something of the crusading spirit which was engendered in Spain by the struggle with the Moors. The pioneer in forest or plain was not merely ama.s.sing land and wealth for himself; there was a spiritual harvest, and as he received new lands, he had new duties in religious administration and protection. Thus the Spanish religious fervour was nourished in the overseas dominions.

The religious spirit was handed down unimpaired from father to son until the time of the Revolution. The question as to whether the power of the Church was beneficial or not is a matter of controversy, and travellers have uttered the most various opinions, but few candid men will deny that the Jesuits performed a n.o.ble task which could have been carried out by no other human power, and the disparaging remarks which are found in many notebooks are usually due to the cant of irreligion that was common among the Englishmen of the time between the French Revolution and the Oxford Movement. On a subject which does not interest them they say, without having troubled to make inquiries, what they would say about any Roman Catholic country or what some freethinking acquaintance in Buenos Aires has told them.

With the Revolution came a great shock to the faith of the people, and the same principles that undermined their faith undermined their loyalty. The philosophers of France ever urged that the Church must be overthrown before there could be any progress, and the priests ever fought against their doctrines as destructive to all religion.

Consequently the male population of Buenos Aires formed habits of mind[83] which they have by no means entirely shaken off at the present day. Apathy towards religion or even absolute hostility is by no means uncommon, and perhaps in well-to-do houses it is generally true that the women go to church and the men stay away. And yet it would not be true to describe the nation as irreligious on the whole.

Materialism has, no doubt, to some extent corrupted the upper cla.s.ses; they devote themselves to business and pleasure and ignore the things of the spirit. But the churches are crowded with men as well as women, and it is certain that the poor love the Church and doubtless find the priests their best friends. Cordoba and Mendoza are looked upon as the cities where the Church is strongest, but its general hold upon the ma.s.ses is possibly almost as strong as ever. Intellectually it is weak; few of the better-cla.s.s Argentines will take priests' orders, and nearly all the prelates are foreigners. Beyond a doubt, in Spanish America there is an unexampled field for a devout missionary; the foe is merely apathy, and if a warmer spirit were breathed into the Church in Argentina, and if the clergy paid more attention to the intellectual side of their calling, the results would be remarkable.

But if the religious indifference spreads downwards, Argentina, like France, may see her population dwindle, and her army decay, and may be prevented from taking a high position among world Powers.

Statistically, there can be no doubt that Argentina belongs unreservedly to Rome; only the merest fraction, perhaps forty thousand, of the population is outside that Church. In 1895 there were sixty-eight Reformed Churches, but of these twenty-five belonged to the Welsh colonists at Chubut. There were 1,019 Roman Catholic churches, or one to every four thousand inhabitants. The prevailing religion is also the State religion, but all others are tolerated.

There is an archbishop at Buenos Aires and eight suffragan bishops, including one for Paraguay.

Education has not made remarkable strides in Argentina, for exactly half of the people over six years of age are illiterate. In 1885 some 25 per cent. of the children of school-going age attended school, and in 1904 the percentage had only risen to 45, and of these only a fraction could read or write. The defects of primary education[84] are comparatively unimportant, for the country needs agriculturists rather than clerks, and when the peasants really desire instruction they will not be long in obtaining it. But indifferent University and secondary education are the curse of Latin America. Beyond anything else Argentina requires a real aristocracy--a large, cultivated, and public-spirited upper cla.s.s--and this cla.s.s, owing chiefly to defective education, is now very small. There are at Cordoba and Buenos Aires national Universities, and provincial Universities at La Plata, Santa Fe, and Parana. But the unfortunate materialism is not eradicated by these inst.i.tutions, which, in Latin America, are too often merely bread-winning concerns, which neglect humane studies because they are "useless." If the Holy See would encourage the foundation of a religious University, the country would benefit in every way.

Secondary education (it is difficult to obtain up-to-date figures) does not appear to have been particularly flouris.h.i.+ng in 1905. There were 16 lyceums, 450 professors, and 4,103 pupils. There were also 35 normal schools with 2,011 pupils. It is, of course, a common practice for wealthy parents to send their children to Europe to be educated, and perhaps, under the circ.u.mstances, that is the best course. But with a sound and liberal course of studies and good moral and religious discipline, the young might be kept in the country till they had completed their University career, and then sent for a short residence abroad. There is a temptation that besets cultivated Argentines, who are the most necessary to the welfare of their country, to seek diplomatic posts or some duties that will take them abroad. Most of the distinguished authors publish in Madrid or Paris, and thus there is an intellectual and moral drain which would be checked if the system of education were improved.

As regards primary education, there were in 1905, 5,250 schools, 14,118 teachers, and 543,881 pupils. The average attendance was 408,069. Considering that in 1899 about one million sterling was spent upon education, and that for a generation Argentina has spent probably more per head upon each school-child than any other country except Australia, the results are by no means satisfactory, and, like all new nations, the Argentines require to learn the lesson that learning and enlightenment cannot be obtained by money or bricks and mortar.[85]

As regards the journalism of Argentina, it would be difficult to speak too highly of the two princ.i.p.al daily newspapers, _La Nacion_ and _La Prensa_. _La Nacion_ may perhaps claim the front place. It is the oldest daily journal in Buenos Aires, dating from 1852, and it was long under the influence of General Bartolome Mitre, for, as a French writer[86] remarks, no politician can succeed without a newspaper, and no newspaper can hope to obtain much influence without the support of a politician. It has a circulation of about ninety thousand. The paper is on a very large scale and full of matter; its tone is admirable, the ability of the leading articles is remarkable, and the literary pages, which are lavishly provided, reach a very high standard indeed. Hardly second to _La Nacion_ is _La Prensa_, which has offices, situated in the Avenida de Mayo, said to be more splendid than anything of the kind in existence. It is not as old as its rival, dating from about 1872, and it may be described as being of much the same size and scope as the _Daily Telegraph_, but rather more attention is given to literary style. Sobriety and moderation, as well as great ability, are its characteristics. It is the property of Dr.

Jose C. Paz, who is said to have made a large fortune by it.

_El Diario_ is an enterprising evening paper, and has a very large circulation. The journal possessed of the largest circulation of all (said to approach two hundred thousand) is _La Argentina_, which appeals more to the man in the street. Other Spanish dailies are _El Pais_, _El Tiempo_, _La Razon_, _El Diario de Comercio_, and _El Correo Espanol_.

There is a French daily, _Le Courier de la Plata_, and several German and Italian. At the same office as _La Argentina_ is printed the _Standard_, an old English newspaper of high repute. This was founded in 1861 by the Mulhalls--an honoured name in Buenos Aires--and besides being extensively read by English residents, it has considerable influence with the authorities. Very similar in appearance and scope, but less influential, is the _Buenos Aires Herald_, another English daily paper, the property of Mr. Thomas Bell.

The provincial towns have also meritorious journals, but they are, of course, overshadowed by those of the capital. The daily press of Argentina is perhaps the most elevating influence in the country. It is a really useful daily help, containing a splendid a.s.sortment of foreign telegrams, and news and dissertations to suit the most varying tastes.

While conducted with unflagging enterprise and commercially very valuable, as is shown by the interminable columns of closely printed advertis.e.m.e.nts, it is honourably free from the sensation-mongering and vulgarity which is rampant in the United States and which has, to some extent, infected our own daily newspapers.