Argentine Railway Loan Co., Ltd. £827,600 River Plate Trust Loan and Agency Co. 2,705,422 Société de Crédit Foncier de Santa Fé 511,120 Mortgage Co. of the River Plate 1,997,717 River Plate and Gal. Investment Trust Co. 504,000 Dutch Mortgage Trust of the Rio de la. Plata 286,194 Argentine Mortgage and Agricultural Co. 80,000 The Standard 541,488 Crédit Foncier Argentine 3,016,340 Compagnie Pastorale Belge Sud.-Americaine 1,350,102 Société Hypothécaire Belge-Argentine 1,583,130 Banque Hypothécaire Franco-Argentine 1,487,160 Société Rurale de Bahia Blanca 3,960 ------------ £14,894,233 ============ High as these figures are, however, they represent only a portion of the foreign capital employed in this class of transactions, for considerable sums are advanced by private persons who wish to obtain the high interest obtainable. These companies lend only gold, that they may escape the fluctuations of the paper-money market, and usually limit their operations to dealing with properties in the capital or in the Province of Buenos Ayres, doing business with the rest of the country only in a very limited degree. Although Argentine legislation is extremely advanced in the matter of loans and mortgages, the lender fears, in the case of certain provinces, to encounter difficulties in practice, or delays of legal procedure in the case of foreclosing. The interest on mortgages, which during the year 1908 was maintained at about 9 per cent., is to-day showing a tendency to fall, on account of the abundance of money in the Buenos Ayres market; the rate is now as low as 8 per cent. It is in the capital of the Argentine that mortgage operations are most active. During the decade 1889-1908 the amount of loans upon property reached the sum of £37,241,000. This amount was lent upon 40,996 properties; and of this total £7,603,000 was lent in 1908 alone. The mortgages effected upon rural properties, throughout the entire Republic, for the years 1903 to 1907 inclusive, amounted to £37,920,000, and the mortgaged property amounted to nearly 80,000,000 acres. In this total the Province of Buenos Ayres was represented by £16,880,000; that of Santa Fé by £3,240,000; that of Córdoba by £6,240,000.