The question has often been raised as to whether, on the wording of the guarantee endorsed on National Cedulas, the National Government is responsible for repayment of the principal as well as the interest on them. This, however, amounts almost to a quibble; of little, if any, more than abstract interest. The amortization of these Bonds is certainly guaranteed in like manner as is the interest on them, and only some tremendous crisis, now unimaginable, could so wreck the whole territory of the Republic that land values throughout that territory would simultaneously fall to an extent which could render impossible the redemption of mortgages granted in the first place with a very liberal margin between the actual market value of the land and the amounts of the Bonds issued on its security. For, it should be noted in this connection, a Cedula is not issued by the Bank on the Security of such or such designated property, it is issued on the security, guaranteed by the Bank after due investigation, of _all_ the mortgages held by it. So that, in effect, even if the whole of a Province were to be engulfed by an earthquake, the security of none of the Bank’s Cedulas would be affected by the loss since, at the margin reserved by the Bank, all the remainder of the lands on which it holds mortgages would still be ample security for all its bonds. The reader who is already well acquainted with these matters must forgive me for thus setting them out in so obvious a way. I ask him to believe that there are still very many holders of Argentine National Cedulas possessed of only the vaguest ideas of how their Bonds came into existence, and practically none as to the real nature of the security for them, except a general sort of notion that they are Argentine Government Bonds. As will be seen, the facts justify my dictum of a few pages back that these Bonds really offer as gilt-edged a security as anyone could wish for. Other securities most commonly dealt in in the Securities side of the Market are “Credito Argentino,” National Internal debt, the “Premier Security” of the Country, as it has been called; and some Provincial and Municipal Bonds. On the share side, the shares of the various Banks are usually the subject of the most really important quotations on the slate. Many first-class Argentine securities and shares seldom come on the market. CHAPTER VIII RAILWAYS, PORTS AND IMMIGRATION RAILWAYS It is often said that the foreign, mostly British, railway community on the River Plate constitutes an _Imperium in Imperio_.