The Argentine in the Twentieth CenturyMartínez, Alberto B.
History
The Argentine in the Twentieth Century
Martínez, Alberto B.
Argentina -- Commerce; Argentina -- Economic conditions; Finance -- Argentina
What will one of these rich South Americans spend abroad? How far do
the mass of them contribute to increase the sum which the country pays
out across the ocean every year? It is difficult to guess; but if we
estimate, as we moderately may, that each of them spends about £1000,
we may add on this count only a sum of £1,080,500 to the debit side of
the Argentine balance. On the other hand, we have not included among the
yearly liabilities the enormous sums which the country pays each year
in ocean freight charges, because in fixing the sale price of exported
products the freight has already been deducted, as well as insurance,
brokerage, commissions, the cost of wharfage, etc., etc. But to give some
idea of the importance of these sums it is enough to say that, according
to estimates worthy of evidence, the Argentine Republic paid in freight,
in the year 1908, for the transport of some 6 million tons of linseed,
wheat, and maize, at the rate of £1 per ton of grain, a sum of about
£6,500,000.
These figures having been considered, we may now establish as follows the
basis of the economic balance of the Argentine:——
The Credit side is formed in the first place by the value of the exports,
which in 1908 increased to £73,200,000; then by the great and incessant
consignments of capital on the part of already existing companies, or new
ones which are formed to exploit railways, tramways, or other industrial
undertakings, or to undertake the mortgaging of landed property. An
economic journal, much valued in Buenos Ayres, the _Buenos-Aires Handels
Zeitung_, estimates at £8,000,000 the amount of fresh capital which
enters the country each year. The third class of assets is constituted
by the sums brought into the country by immigrants, which are estimated
at £1,800,000. The total of all these sums amounts to the considerable
figure of £83,000,000.
On the Debit side we must first of all place the value of imports, which
in 1908 amounted to £54,600,000, including the large arrivals of railway
and tramway material which the country has not to pay for immediately, as
it obtains them upon long credit; this item is consequently much smaller
in reality than it appears at first sight. Then comes the interest on
the foreign capital invested in the Argentine Republic in bonds of the
National Debt, in railway shares, tramway shares, and various other
undertakings.
We have seen that the revenue of all these securities issued by or in
direct relation with the Argentine Republic amounts to £22,000,000,
and that of this sum £4,300,000 remains in the Argentine; we therefore
conclude that £18,000,000 leaves the country each year as remuneration
for investments.
Then we have also to enter upon the debit side a total of £84,400,000
which “seems to leave the country” each year in payment of the debts
contracted with foreign countries. But in reality this sum is perceptibly
less, for the reasons we have mentioned above, so that we may reduce it
to £80,000,000.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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