But it is in the National Territories——in one of which more than one important European people could find room to spare——that we find the lowest density. There the desert reigns in all its desolation. The Territory of El Pampa, whence so much wealth has been drawn of late years, and whose area is 56,200 square miles, contains barely 52,000 inhabitants; that of Rio Negro, whose area is 45,600 square miles, contains but 16,000, while in the Territory of Santa Cruz, situated on the shores of the Atlantic, in which there are important ranches, and which might contain a numerous pastoral and maritime population, there are only 1742 souls to its 58,890 square miles. All these figures prove that the Argentine is, without metaphor, a desert nation, and that for the present and for a long time to come, its peopling will constitute its great national need. To this affirmation we must add another no less certain: that in the normal order of human events, and in accordance with the economic and sociological laws that govern European nations, there is no country in the world which assures the labourer who establishes himself upon its soil of such perspectives of wealth and welfare. All things compete to make it a paradise of immigration: the softness and variety of its climate, the richness of its soil, the extent of its territory, the enormous inland waterways which cross it, and the facilities of communication with the European consumers of its produce, with whom the Argentine is connected by one of the most reliable ocean traffic-ways in the world.[29] [Footnote 29: The distance of nearly 7200 miles from Buenos Ayres to the French ports is crossed by the great transatlantic liners in from eighteen to twenty-one days. The Argentine Parliament has voted a law authorising the Government to give a subsidy of £400 monthly to any company adopting the refrigerator system and undertaking to make the voyage to Lisbon or Vigo in fifteen days.] The United States, which have hitherto been the objective and centre of attraction to which men of initiative have converged from all parts of the world, are beginning to experience all the troubles familiar to European nations as the result of an excessive population.[30] It is for this reason that they are striving, by all the means in their power, to restrain the stream of immigration that pours upon their shores.