Year. Immigrants. Emigrants. Excess in favour of Immigration. 1904 125,567 38,923 86,644 1905 177,117 42,869 134,248 1906 252,536 60,124 192,412 1907 209,103 90,190 118,913 1908 255,710 85,412 170,298 _Immigration from 1857 to 1908._ Italians 1,799,423 Spaniards 795,243 French 188,316 English 42,765 Austro-Hungarians 59,800 Germans 40,655 Swiss 28,344 Belgians 20,668 Other Nationalities 203,242 ————————— Total 3,178,456 As we have already observed, one of the causes which impede emigration is to be found in the faulty distribution of the soil, the obstacles which the agricultural immigrant has to surmount before he can become the proprietor of even a scrap of ground; and in the lack of serious attempts at colonisation, which would provide the cultivator with the means of working his holding and finally of becoming its proprietor. “How many immigrants,” says Señor Girola, “coming to this country with the idea of buying a little piece of land, have been forced to abandon their dream, on account of the difficulties put in the way of their obtaining the desired holding!”[34] [Footnote 34: _Investigacion agricola_, 1904, Carlos D. Girola.] Far from encouraging the promotion of a class of small land-owners, the State has assisted in the establishment of enormous holdings, which are the chief obstacle to the peopling of the country. In place of dividing into small allotments, accessible to modest fortunes, the great stretches of land near the railways or the ports, and offering them for sale at low prices in the European communities from which a number of immigrants come each year, as is done by the United States, Australia, and Canada, the Argentine administration has subjected all the operations of purchase to long and wearisome formalities which quickly exhaust both the savings and the patience of the purchaser. Argentina, then, if she wishes to solve this vital problem of colonisation, which is for her the problem of immigration, must give careful thought to the adoption of some well-devised scheme, with the object of subdividing the present great parcels of land, and of attaching the agriculturalist to the land he tills, by allowing him to become its owner. Without this necessary reform, the country will continue to experience the phenomenon of temporary immigration; the immigration of men who return to their own countries as soon as they have been able to save a little money: a process exceedingly prejudicial to the best interests of the country.