The upper classes, on the other hand, strive chiefly to reflect the latest moods of European fashion in general and of that of Paris in particular—even, since the War, to the extent of making retrenchment in living expenses the fashion. A fashion which, if it last, will not be the least of the good which has come to Argentina from the European upheaval which has forced the River Plate countries to learn to rely on their own resources and individual efforts. Gone, already, are the battalions of motor-cars of very latest pattern with which every wealthy Argentine family has hitherto thought it necessary to its dignity to be provided—one each for father, mother and each son and daughter—economy is now “De Moda” and ostentation therefore become old-fashioned and bad taste. An immense change to have taken place, as it did, in the course of only a few months. Montevideo had no need of such a _volte face_ of habit. Uruguayans never developed the love of display so characteristic of Argentine aristocracy. With its some 1½ million inhabitants, Buenos Aires has the largest population of any Capital City in America. Montevideo, with some 400,000 inhabitants, surpasses Washington in this respect. CHAPTER VII FINANCE AND COMMERCE Owing to their dependence on the Northern Hemisphere for the Capital necessary for the continuance of their development, the River Plate countries, and South American countries generally, are as a barometer, and an extremely sensitive one, in regard to the conditions of the Money markets of the Older World. Thus already in 1913, the fear of Balkan complications in both Argentina and Uruguay was represented by a general fall in what previously may have been somewhat inflated, or at least too anticipatory, land values. This fall, coupled with and increased by relatively bad harvests, marked the commencement of rather bad times in both Republics. In this regard it may be well to say that comparatively bad times come easily and swiftly on a country like Argentina, the prosperity of which depends very largely indeed on its cereal production and in which landowners and agriculturists from the largest _Estanciero_ to the smallest _Chacrero_ have long been encouraged by Nature to regard each coming year as inevitably more prosperous than its predecessor. The result of this optimism, usually justified by the event, is that when any set-back, caused, say, by late frosts or early rains, such as farmers in less favoured lands would take as an ordinary risk of their occupation, does occur, the streets of Buenos Aires are immediately filled with men with long faces running to the Banks and anxiously discussing the ruin which, apparently, seems to them to be staring them in the face, notwithstanding that most of them must often have been through similar “crises” before.