If we now proceed to examine the revenue derived from the national estates, we find that its most important item proceeds from the sale and allocation of the public lands. This revenue, which figures among those enumerated by the fundamental charter as forming the resources of the Treasury, has by no means produced what it should, owing to the lack of method or foresight in the management of this important administrative department. In 1908 this source produced only £278,080; and this sum represents a considerable increase over previous years, especially over the year 1904, when the revenue was only £27,368. But when we take the fact into account that the nation still possesses 212 millions of acres of land, which are situated in territories whose population is rapidly increasing, and which will shortly be well served with railways, we perceive at once that these lands, which are a powerful source of attraction to immigrants, may also in time become a very important source of revenue. The revenue derived from the exploitation of industrial undertakings and from the national domains being thus eliminated from the list of effective revenues, as being nominal or insignificant, we see that the nation has no other positive resources than the customs duties and imposts upon consumption. This explains the development of the budgets of the last few years, in which the domestic and indirect duties have increased the fiscal receipts.[99] [Footnote 99: See _Memoria del Ministerio de Hacienda_, 1895, Vols. IX. and XI.] One of the characteristics of the present situation of the Argentine is the remarkable elasticity displayed by the increase of the fiscal resources. At the present time few countries in the world present a similar spectacle. Here, more than in any other country, the official revenues are in direct relation to the result of the harvests and the exportation of the products of the ranch; so that the table of fiscal receipts is a kind of infallible barometer, which measures the degree of wealth and prosperity of the general population. If——not to go back too far in our investigations——we take the thirteen years from 1895 to 1908 as an example, and if we convert into gold the sums received in paper, according to the average rate of exchange for each of these years, we find, in the first place, that in 1895 the Treasury received £7,600,000. Since then these figures have increased in rapid progression; passing from £7,600,000 to £8,600,000; thence to £10,000,000; thence to £10,600,000; thence to £14,600,000; but in 1900, through economic causes such as the loss of harvests, anthrax, the closing of English ports to Argentine live-stock, joined to such political causes as the fear of complications with Chili, the revenues fell to £13,000,000. But progress was not long in establishing itself anew; in 1904, the revenue was £15,200,000; in 1907, £21,200,000; and in 1908, £22,400,000, which is the highest figure the administration has ever known.