However, competition between the various companies has had the effect of dividing the Pampean plain into three great spheres of influence. The first, in the north, is that of the Central Argentine and the Buenos Aires y Rosario line. In 1908 the Argentine Government officially sanctioned the fusion of the two companies, though it had really been accomplished a few years before. The second sphere, in the south, is that of the Pacific, the attraction of which was the line from Buenos Aires to Villa Mercedes, and which in 1907 bought the line from Villa Mercedes to Mendoza and the Trans-Andean, a natural continuation of its system. Moreover, in 1904 the Pacific absorbed the line from Bahia Blanca to the north-west, which has been linked up once more with its original system at Villa Mercedes. It thus has two outlets, to Buenos Aires and Bahia Blanca, and completely encloses the third sphere with its branches. The third sphere, which comprises the centre and south of the Pampean plain, is the domain of the Southern and Western Companies. In 1912 these two companies asked the Argentine Government to authorize them to amalgamate. Although they withdrew their proposal in 1914, in face of the conditions imposed upon them, they are still closely associated. Part of the traffic of the western lines of the Western passes over Southern lines at Carbue, and is shipped at the port Ingeniero White. At Buenos Aires also, and at La Plata, part of the Western Company's traffic in cereals and cattle uses the premises of the Southern Company. The Western and the Southern, jointly, bought in 1908, before it was finished, the narrow-gauge Midland of Buenos Aires line at Carbue, which was to cross their sphere of influence. It was opened in 1911. The importance of the transport of cereals in the life of the leading Argentine systems will be seen from the following figures. In percentages of the total of goods carried, both from the interior to the ports and _vice versa_, the tonnage of exported cereals was:-- ---------------+--------+--------+--------+---------- | 1913 | 1914 | 1916 | Average. ---------------+--------+--------|--------|---------- Southern | 31.0 | 34.3 | 32.5 | 32.6 Western | 58.3 | 61.7 | 55.1 | 58.4 Pacific | 29.0 | 41.8 | 33.8 | 35.0 Central | 36.5 | 46.6 | 34.8 | 39.5 ---------------+--------+--------+--------+----------