It is governed by institutions more liberal than those of any other nation, especially in all that affects the foreigner; it regards the influx of immigration with approval, and seeks to promote it. In proportion as its vast vacant spaces become peopled their value is increased tenfold, and production grows at an enormous pace; for a single family, by the aid of modern machinery, can exploit a larger area of soil, yielding a produce far greater than is required for its own consumption; a fact which explains the surprising rate at which the export trade has increased. Such are the true causes of the prosperity of this country, as is proved, with abundant detail, by MM. Martinez and Lewandowski; and as these causes are not accidental, but fundamental and permanent, they should produce in South America the same results as in the North. Granted that wealth and prosperity are essentially conservative elements, we have here a serious guarantee of political stability; the more so as the country has already passed the difficult age and is cured of the malady endemic to South America——anarchy. It is also to be hoped that our Argentine politicians, taught by experience, and comprehending all the responsibilities imposed upon them by their noble mission——the work of racial regeneration and the betterment of South America——will succeed in making constitutional government an actual fact, by restraining and uprooting the tendency to personal power, which is the lamentable heritage of indigenous tradition. It is a great nation that is rising on the brink of the twentieth century; the mistress of an enormous inheritance. Immigration and the increase of the birth-rate are furnishing it with the arms it requires; it lacks only those reserves of capital which, like all new peoples, it has not as yet had time to create. In no country can European capital find a more fertile or advantageous field for its operations: a fact already well known in England; and one the authors of this book have wished to emphasise for the greater benefit of French capital. In this they serve the interests of France and, still more particularly, those of the Argentine Republic; and in the name of my own compatriots, as well as for myself, I take this opportunity of expressing my sincere gratitude. C. PELLEGRINI. THE ARGENTINE IN THE 20TH CENTURY GENERAL PLAN AND METHOD OF THIS BOOK Before commencing a study of the financial and economic situation in the Argentine Republic, it is important to decide at the outset as to the spirit in which this examination should be pursued, and the method most proper to such an inquiry. We tread upon a novel and peculiar field, and any too rigid comparison with the events of other countries might easily lead us to errors of appreciation.