The Argentine as a Market


A  REPORT
To the Electors to the Gartside Scholarships on the Results of a Tour in the Argentine in 1906-7

BY
N. L. WATSON, B.A.
Gartside Scholar

MANCHESTER
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1908

UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER PUBLICATIONS
No. XXXIII.

THE GARTSIDE REPORTS.

The Gartside Reports are the reports made by the Gartside Scholars at the University of Manchester. The Gartside Scholarships were established in 1902 for a limited period, by John Henry Gartside, Esq., of Manchester. They are tenable for two years and about three are awarded each year. They are open to males of British nationality who at the date of the election shall be over the age of eighteen years and under the age of twenty-three years.

Every scholar must enter the University of Manchester for one Session for a course of study approved by the electors. The remainder of the time covered by the Scholarship must be devoted to the examination of subjects bearing upon Commerce or Industry in Germany or Switzerland, or in the United States of America, or partly in one of the above-mentioned countries and partly in others, but the electors may on special grounds allow part of this period of the tenure of the Scholarship to be spent in study and travel in some other country or countries. It is intended that each scholar shall select some industry, or part of an industry, or some business, for examination, and investigate this comparatively in the United Kingdom and abroad. The first year’s work at the University of Manchester is designed to prepare the student for this investigation, and it partly takes the form of directed study, from publications and by direct investigation, of English conditions with regard to the industrial or commercial subjects upon which research will be made abroad in the second year of the scholarship. Finally, each scholar must present a report, which will as a rule be published.

The value of a Scholarship is about £80 a year for the time spent in England, £150 a year for time spent on the Continent of Europe, and about £250 a year for time spent in America.

EDITOR’S NOTE.

Mr. N. L. Watson’s sudden departure to fill a commercial position in the East has prevented him from seeing this Report through the press himself.

CHAPTER I.

THE ECONOMIC BASIS OF THE ARGENTINE.

The first thing that strikes the new arrival in the Argentine, and the last thing that he is likely to forget when he leaves the country, is the extraordinary inflation of prices. With the exception of meat, and perhaps bread, there is no article of common consumption which does not cost considerably more than in England, every allowance being made for freight and tariff charges. The reason for this excess is doubtless to be found in the concentration of trade in the capital. All imports, for reasons that will be dealt with later, pass through the hands of the large houses in Buenos Aires, who act as sole agents for the whole of the Republic north of the Rio Negro. [While, owing to the precarious nature of all business, dependent entirely on the grain and cattle yield, much higher prices are charged in fat years than would be justified if these times of prosperity were regarded as permanent.] Because of this concentration of business in the capital, and in the centre of the town in particular, rents have risen to an immense extent, greatly increasing all establishment charges, and in turn the price of commodities sold—a cause which acts again of course in retail trade and neutralises the freight charges to outlying districts. But the essential fact in Argentine Economics, and one which seems more than obvious, but apparently escapes the comprehension of Argentine legislators, is that the country is naturally, and must remain for some considerable time, a producer of raw material exclusively. The country is still considerably under-populated for the development of its natural resources, while only a small portion of the settled area is yet producing even half the yield of which it is immediately capable. Immigration of a certain class—capable agriculturalists with some capital—is still required. But with a strange perversity politicians have persistently advocated a high protective tariff for the purpose of fostering industrial development. The result has been that certain industries have cropped up under this system, which are quite incapable of independent existence, and, while satisfying neither the employers nor their men, constitute a very heavy drain on the national purse. The chief objection, however, to the policy is that it invites a class of immigrant who is really not required in the country and who has taken to settling in the capital instead of scattering into the camp.

The immigrant required is the “colonist,” to whom the