The value of a Scholarship is about £80 a year for the time spent in England, £150 a year for time spent on the Continent of Europe, and about £250 a year for time spent in America. EDITOR'S NOTE. MR. N. L. WATSON's sudden departure to fill a commercial position in the East has prevented him from seeing this Report through the press himself. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE. Chapter I. The Economic Basis of the Argentine 1 " II. The Railways 6 " III. Industries and the Labour Question 12 " IV. Foreign Capital and Public Debt 16 " V. Argentina from the Immigrant's Standpoint 20 " VI. English Trade. Its Position and Prospects 25 " VII. The Tariff 41 Statistical Appendix 53 CHAPTER I. THE ECONOMIC BASIS OF THE ARGENTINE. The first thing that strikes the new arrival in the Argentine, and the last thing that he is likely to forget when he leaves the country, is the extraordinary inflation of prices. With the exception of meat, and perhaps bread, there is no article of common consumption which does not cost considerably more than in England, every allowance being made for freight and tariff charges. The reason for this excess is doubtless to be found in the concentration of trade in the capital. All imports, for reasons that will be dealt with later, pass through the hands of the large houses in Buenos Aires, who act as sole agents for the whole of the Republic north of the Rio Negro. [While, owing to the precarious nature of all business, dependent entirely on the grain and cattle yield, much higher prices are charged in fat years than would be justified if these times of prosperity were regarded as permanent.] Because of this concentration of business in the capital, and in the centre of the town in particular, rents have risen to an immense extent, greatly increasing all establishment charges, and in turn the price of commodities sold--a cause which acts again of course in retail trade and neutralises the freight charges to outlying districts. But the essential fact in Argentine Economics, and one which seems more than obvious, but apparently escapes the comprehension of Argentine legislators, is that the country is naturally, and must remain for some considerable time, a producer of raw material exclusively. The country is still considerably under-populated for the development of its natural resources, while only a small portion of the settled area is yet producing even half the yield of which it is immediately capable. Immigration of a certain class--capable agriculturalists with some capital--is still required. But with a strange perversity politicians have persistently advocated