The various industries of this Republic, which supply the materials for the rapidly increasing commerce, are dealt with in other chapters. Buenos Aires from very early times has had a brisk trade. Even in the seventeenth century the traffic in hides excited the admiration of travellers, and at the end of the eighteenth century the new and liberal commercial policy pursued by the Home Government resulted in a promising development which was roughly checked by the Revolution. From 1825 to 1842 the foreign trade per inhabitant positively diminished, and by 1850 it was only £4 8s. per head as against £3 12s. in 1795. Now it is some £20. Obviously the slow progress after the Revolution was due to the sinister tyranny of Rosas, which stifled the development of communications and all other progress. A traveller,[109] who visited the Pampas in 1848, says: "The soil is good for agriculture, yet flour is either imported from the United States, or obtained from the northern provinces; and its price is enhanced by the cost of land-carriage several hundred miles." He concludes his interesting work with these words[110]: "But while our own colonies of Australia and New Zealand offer such rich and boundless fields for the profitable employment of capital among our own countrymen, there is less inducement than ever for merchants to risk their capital and energies amongst a race of people where the wealth of nature is wasted by the combined operation of ignorance, unstable government, and interminable warfare." Very different has been Argentina's commercial history for the last sixty years, and the only check was afforded by the Celman crash. Now[111] "the producing capacity of the country is steadily increasing, and in cereal production its status is evidenced by the fact that as a corn [_i.e._, maize] exporter the Argentine Republic took first rank in 1908, occupying the place formerly held by the United States. In the production[112] of this foodstuff the country ranks third, and as a wheat-grower fifth. It is first as an exporter of frozen meat, and second as a shipper of wool. In the number of its cattle the Republic holds third place among the nations, being ranked by India and the United States. Russia and the United States exceed it in number of horses, and Australia alone has a greater number of sheep." As a complement to this description of the commerce, a few words should be said about the industries which directly nourish it. Elsewhere will be found an account of the foreign steamship lines which connect Argentina with the outer world.[113] Here it is necessary to give the figures of her modest mercantile marine as far as they can be ascertained:-- Steamships 131 Tonnage 55,561 Sailing ships 161 Tonnage 40,581 ---- ------- Total 292 96,142