Even those industries, however, that flourish, do so in spite of their labour. They are all, it will be observed, concerned with the production of goods that are either expensive or difficult to transport, and only the direst necessity could prevent their home manufacture. In the course of last year there were two general strikes (in Buenos Aires and Rosario) besides numerous small ones. Dock labourers seem to be continually in partial ferment, and even the most generous treatment does not prevent railway employees from stopping work occasionally. The causes of this instability are fairly apparent, though the same cannot be said of the remedy. For various reasons industrial labour is entirely supplied by Italian immigrants, mostly Neapolitans. The other nationalities who come into the country engage for the most part in agricultural work, either as colonists, buying their land, or as tenant farmers on short leases. Skilled English and other European labour is also employed in factories, but only for the higher grades of work, and in positions of some responsibility. Thus the available labour is recruited from the lower class of immigrants, and from a race not remarkable for stability. In the second place, living in the capital is extremely dear, not least being the price of house accommodation. Although an Italian can satisfy his requirements at a much lower rate than an Englishman could his, yet even he can scarcely make both ends meet, while the excess of expenditure over receipts is particularly galling in the land of promise. Recently, too, additional grievances have been introduced by the wholesale eviction of tenants owing to the purchase by syndicates of whole blocks of buildings, and the subsequent re-letting of them at immensely increased prices. In the first six months of last year there were more than eleven thousand petitions for evictions before the justices. With a discontented and excitable working population, therefore, as a field for their activities it is not surprising that the agitators, of whom there is no lack, should be so successful. Attempts are being made by various large concerns to supply reasonable accommodation for their employees, and more than one railway has been particularly liberal in this respect. But it was only a short time ago that a strike of very serious dimensions was declared in the workshops of one of the most generous, on the most ridiculous pretext.