ARGENTINE REPUBLIC. 



17 



4,885,777 tons; the number cleared 10,810, of 

 4,'319,439 tons. Of the total tonnage 80 per cent, 

 was national, 30 percent. British, 16 per'cent. 

 French, and 7 per cent. Italian. 



Railroads. There were 6,940 miles of rail- 

 road completed in 1889, and 2,990 miles under 

 construction. The receipts were $21,000,000 

 and the expenses $12,250,000 in 1888. 



Post-Office and Telegraphs. Of 14,700 miles 

 of telegraph lines in operation in 1888 the state 

 owned 7,300 miles, The total length of wires 

 was 25,550 miles. The number of dispatches in 

 1889 was 3,511,420. In November, 1889, a con- 

 cession was granted for a direct cable between 

 Buenos Ayres and Europe, to be ready for oper- 

 ation within two years and a half. The postal 

 traffic in 1889 was 42,965,555 letters, 965,269 pos- 

 tal cards, and 32,793,607 newspapers, etc. 



The Army and Navy. The regular army 

 consists of 1,000 artillery, 2,500 cavalry, and 3,- 

 500 infantry, exclusive of officers, who number 

 1,129 of all grades. The militia comprises 236,- 

 000 men between the ages of seventeen and forty- 

 five years. 



The navy in 1889 comprised 1 sea-going armor- 

 clad, the " Almirante Brown," of 4,200 tons dis- 

 placement, with 9-inch steel-faced armor ; 2 iron- 

 clad monitors ; 1 deck-protected cruiser ; 6 gun- 

 boats ; and 9 torpedo boats, besides dispatch 

 boats, transports, and sailing vessels. Two tor- 

 pedo gunboats, each armed with 6 Nordenfeldt 

 quick-firing guns, 2 gatling guns, and 5 torpedo 

 tubes, were launched in England in 1890. 



Financial History. The material develop- 

 ment of the Argentine Republic was begun by 

 the reforms of Gen. Roca, who became Presi- 

 dent in 1880. In the former era, when cattle- 

 breeding was the only large industry of the coun- 

 try and hides were almost the only article of 

 export, the city and province of Buenos Ayres 

 dominated the confederation, and political power 

 was attained by adventurers who lavished their 

 money in attaching to their fortunes a sufficient 

 following of guacho desperadoes, the semi-civil- 

 ized half-breed cattle-men of the plains, who con- 

 stituted the only fighting class in the community. 

 Roca neutralized this turbulent element by cre- 

 ating a disciplined army armed with repeating 

 rifles. The federal republic became more of a 

 reality when the city of Buenos Ayres was sepa- 

 rated from the province and made the national 

 capital, and the provincial debt was assumed by 

 the Federal Government, and when public im- 

 provements were introduced with the aid of the 

 Central Government in the other provinces. With 

 the promise of orderly political conditions and 

 the encouragement given by the Government to 

 agriculture and sheep growing, capital and labor 

 poured into the country from Europe. The 

 building of railroads, mainly with money bor- 

 rowed in England, was attended with jobbery 

 and political corruption of the most flagrant 

 character. A period of excessive speculation 

 followed, and this was stimulated by European 

 bankers, who, on the strength of the remarkable 

 growth of production and commerce, could find 

 a ready market for any kind of Argentine secu- 

 rities. Even cedulas, a species of mortgage 

 bonds secured on private lands payable to bear- 

 er, that were issued on the guarantee of the Pro- 

 vincial Hypothecary Bank, a branch of the Pro- 

 VOL. xxx. 2 A 



vincial Bank of Buenos Ayres, were put on the 

 market, first by the Deutsch Bank of Berlin, and 

 found purchasers all over Europe. The Pro- 

 vincial and Hypothecary banks, which, through 

 the privileges granted by the Government of 

 Buenos Ayres, possessed almost a monopoly of 

 the credit business of the country, were owned 

 and controlled by Buenos Ayrean politicians, who 

 exerted their financial influence to secure the 

 succession to the presidency for the governor of 

 the province. To counterbalance their power, 

 President Roca, who had selected his brother-in- 

 law, Juarez Celman, to succeed him, founded, in 

 1884, the National Bank, which was made the 

 fiscal agent of the National Government and of 

 all the provinces except Buenos Ayres, and to 

 this the Congress annexed in the following ses- 

 sion a National Hypothecary Bank, with power 

 to issue cedulas on real estate in the capital and 

 national territories. These transferable mort- 

 gage deeds, passing from hand to hand, served 

 as a kind of money, and thus inflated the circu- 

 lating medium. By means of these financial in- 

 stitutions and by military and official violence 

 and intimidation, Celman was elected and the 

 ascendency secured for the " Cordoba gang," 

 who have the reputation among the Argentines 

 not of their province of being the most corrupt 

 band of public plunderers that ever infested and 

 ruined a prosperous country. These charges 

 they met at the beginning of Celman's adminis- 

 tration by an investigation of the affairs of the 

 Provincial Bank, which proved fraud and pecula- 

 tion to be rife also among their rivals, the poli- 

 ticians of Buenos Ayres. 



Paper money stood at par with gold from 

 1883 till 1885, the amount in circulation when it 

 began to depreciate being $58,000,000. In those 

 two years foreign commerce increased by $33,810,- 

 699. The revenue of the Government increased 

 rapidly, and expenditures at a still greater rate. 

 With the influx of Italian and Spanish immi- 

 grants began an era of wild speculation and the 

 creation of fictitious values. In response to a 

 call for an increased circulating medium, the 

 Congress authorized the National Bank to issue 

 $41,000,000 additional of paper currency. Under 

 the pretense of reforming the financial system. 

 and creating a secured currency, but in reality 

 to satisfy the demand for inflation, a law was 

 passed on Nov. 3, 1887, establishing a system of 

 national banks on the model of those of the 

 United States. Under this law there sprang 

 into existence forty banks, with a capital of $350.- 

 000,000, and by October, 1889, they had issued 

 $158.000,000 of currency, secured by national 

 bonds deposited with the Government. This 

 emission and the continued influx of British, 

 French, Belgian, and German capital, led to a 

 still greater inflation of values. From $750,- 

 000,000 to $1,000,000,000 of English capital is 

 said to be invested in the Argentine Republic 

 and its securities. The gold agio, instead of be- 

 ing lowered by the national banking law, was 

 aggravated. Then came the free banking law, 

 and in a little while the issue of paper currency 

 amounted to $190,000,000, which was increased 

 subsequently to $225,000,000 by clandestine is^ 

 sues that were legalized by the Government. 

 The cedulas, which were practically an addition 

 to the paper currency, continued to be issued 



