The Amazing Argentine: A New Land of Enterprise. Fraser John Foster

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      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 assist 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 god, 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 assisted passages 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 assured, 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 sturdiness 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 crushing into towns for work, as is usual in Canada during the frozen months.

      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 quantity. 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 encompassed 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 sparse, 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 passes, 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 grasses, 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 relationship 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, СКАЧАТЬ