href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@39715@[email protected]#Railways" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">Statistics relating to railways will be found in Chapter VI.

CHAPTER III.

INDUSTRIES AND THE LABOUR QUESTION.

The labour question in the Argentine Republic is one of great difficulty. There is really no native labour, certainly none for industrial purposes. The Gaucho,1 now degenerated into the peon,2 is only available for stock-raising. Agriculture is carried on almost entirely by colonists of various nationalities, and industries by Italian immigrants only. There is one exception, the sugar industry of the north. There conditions are so very different from those in the centre and the south, that it must be treated as almost a separate country. While the north-east—the Chaco district—is still in so uncivilised a state that its possibilities are very hazy. The Quebracho trade yields very large returns with Indian labour, but Indian labour is an unknown quantity. Uncivilized Indians still cause considerable trouble there, and opinions differ considerably as to the possibility of employing them successfully for cotton growing and other new enterprises.

The more important question is that relating to labour for factories, workshops, and railways in the central part of the Republic, and in the towns themselves. That a country situated so far from the great centres of production should continue to import nearly all its necessities as well as luxuries seems incredible. Yet the tendency is certainly more in the direction of increased importation than of home manufacture. There is a tariff of exceptional severity on every conceivable article, but even this fails to develop industries in the country. Breweries, flour mills and repairing shops seem to be the only successful growths, with a few isolated instances, such as canvas shoe factories and similar works. Even the production of such essentially native goods as “ponchos”3 has lapsed in favour of German and Italian wares. While the manufacture of matches—in the hands of a powerful monopoly, bolstered up by privileges and an exorbitant duty—was so seriously jeopardised by a strike last year, that the threat was made—whether seriously or not, cannot be said—of closing down the works and importing immediately from England and Sweden. (It is satisfactory to note in this connection that an English firm promptly stepped forward and made an offer to the Government that if a reduction was made in the duty, it would undertake to place on the market, within little more than a month, some millions of boxes of matches).

Even those industries, however, that flourish, do so in spite of their labour. They are all, it will be observed, concerned with the production of goods that are either expensive or difficult to transport, and only the direst necessity could prevent their home manufacture. In the course of last year there were two general strikes (in Buenos Aires and Rosario) besides numerous small ones. Dock labourers seem to be continually in partial ferment, and even the most generous treatment does not prevent railway employees from stopping work occasionally. The causes of this instability are fairly apparent, though the same cannot be said of the remedy.

For various reasons industrial labour is entirely supplied by Italian immigrants, mostly Neapolitans. The other nationalities who come into the country engage for the most part in agricultural work, either as colonists, buying their land, or as tenant farmers on short leases. Skilled English and other European labour is also employed in factories, but only for the higher grades of work, and in positions of some responsibility. Thus the available labour is recruited from the lower class of immigrants, and from a race not remarkable for stability.

In the second place, living in the capital is extremely dear, not least being the price of house accommodation. Although an Italian can satisfy his requirements at a much lower rate than an Englishman could his, yet even he can scarcely make both ends meet, while the excess of expenditure over receipts is particularly galling in the land of promise. Recently, too, additional grievances have been introduced by the wholesale eviction of tenants owing to the purchase by syndicates of whole blocks of buildings, and the subsequent re-letting of them at immensely increased prices. In the first six months of last year there were more than eleven thousand petitions for evictions before the justices. With a discontented and excitable working population, therefore, as a field for their activities it is not surprising that the agitators, of whom there is no lack, should be so successful. Attempts are being made by various large concerns to supply reasonable accommodation for their employees, and more than one railway has been particularly liberal in this respect. But it was only a short time ago that a strike of very serious dimensions was declared in the workshops of one of the most generous, on the most ridiculous pretext.

The great danger in all labour troubles in the Argentine lies in the fact that they are apt to become general and paralyse trade. It is usually impossible to secure “blacklegs,” a circumstance which the workmen fully realise. Moreover, owing to the peculiar economic conditions of the country, a strike on the part of the workmen in one industry means that all the workmen in that industry stop work; and, as trade is usually in a state of congestion, the difficulties created are enormous. A dock strike in Buenos Aires is doubly serious, because the port is already overcrowded, and there is no alternative port suitable. A match strike, with the present tariff, causes a match famine. A railway strike is sure to break out only when the year’s harvest must be negotiated. And should any single strike show signs of missing fire, in all probability the result is a sympathetic strike on the part of all workmen, including cab-drivers and bakers.

The problem before the Government is very serious, if, indeed, it is not a question which it would be wise for the parties concerned to work out for themselves. Considerable success is reported to have attended the efforts of the Western Railway, who have instituted a conciliation