Breweries 174,249·0 Dairy Companies 31,882·6 Metallurgical Companies 40,605·0 Transport Companies 251,783·2 Hotel and Theatre Companies 59,332·6 Mills and Granaries 33,765·2 Various Industries 169,253·8 General Commercial Companies 141,957·2 ------------- £22,144,939·2 ============= Now what, approximately, are the amounts of securities or movable values belonging to foreigners and to natives of the Argentine? Such is the question we must now set ourselves, as one of the most important relating to the country’s future. Blessed with an immense area of territory, mistress of enormous and unexhausted natural wealth, and peopled by only 6 millions of inhabitants, the Argentine is a nation still in process of formation. She attracts men and money from all quarters of the globe; for she promises generous payment for initiative and for labour. From the economic standpoint, then, it is of enormous importance for the Argentine whether the revenue of her securities goes to persons residing in the country, or whether, on the other hand, it goes abroad, thus unfavourably affecting the result of her commercial transactions, and threatening to upset the balance of international payments. In the case of a country which exists under the special conditions which affect the Argentine, where there are no accumulations of capital, where the spirit of enterprise is not very highly developed, and where every commercial or industrial undertaking of any importance has to look to the outer world for support, the total of the sums which leave the country each year to pay for imported articles, to meet the interest on the National Debt, to pay the dividends on the shares of limited companies, and the profits of private undertakings, the interest on capital out on loan, whether on mortgage or otherwise secured, and finally to remunerate capital invested and employed in the thousand different ways peculiar to this period of rapid intercommunication——the total of all these sums must be very great; something, indeed, like a metallic river rolling across the ocean.