The labour question in the Argentine Republic is one of great difficulty. There is really no native labour, certainly none for industrial purposes. The Gaucho,[1] now degenerated into the peon,[2] is only available for stock-raising. Agriculture is carried on almost entirely by colonists of various nationalities, and industries by Italian immigrants only. There is one exception, the sugar industry of the north. There conditions are so very different from those in the centre and the south, that it must be treated as almost a separate country. While the north-east--the Chaco district--is still in so uncivilised a state that its possibilities are very hazy. The Quebracho trade yields very large returns with Indian labour, but Indian labour is an unknown quantity. Uncivilized Indians still cause considerable trouble there, and opinions differ considerably as to the possibility of employing them successfully for cotton growing and other new enterprises. [1] The descendents of the original Spanish settlers, often showing marked traces of Indian blood. [2] Peon is the name applied to all labourers. The more important question is that relating to labour for factories, workshops, and railways in the central part of the Republic, and in the towns themselves. That a country situated so far from the great centres of production should continue to import nearly all its necessities as well as luxuries seems incredible. Yet the tendency is certainly more in the direction of increased importation than of home manufacture. There is a tariff of exceptional severity on every conceivable article, but even this fails to develop industries in the country. Breweries, flour mills and repairing shops seem to be the only successful growths, with a few isolated instances, such as canvas shoe factories and similar works. Even the production of such essentially native goods as "ponchos"[3] has lapsed in favour of German and Italian wares. While the manufacture of matches--in the hands of a powerful monopoly, bolstered up by privileges and an exorbitant duty--was so seriously jeopardised by a strike last year, that the threat was made--whether seriously or not, cannot be said--of closing down the works and importing immediately from England and Sweden. (It is satisfactory to note in this connection that an English firm promptly stepped forward and made an offer to the Government that if a reduction was made in the duty, it would undertake to place on the market, within little more than a month, some millions of boxes of matches). [3] "Ponchos" are the peculiar rugs with a central slit to admit the head when the "poncho" is used as a cloak. They are used universally in the country.