34 NATURAL REGIONS OF ARGENTINA 



before the war, much the same relation to Argentina 

 as the countries of Western Europe. Thus the economic 

 prosperity of the Repubhc binds it more and more 

 closely to the life of the whole world. Its position 

 in the temperate zone of South America had retarded 

 its entrance into world-commerce, and this explains 

 the slowness with which its colonization proceeded at 

 first. Its climate and products were too similar to 

 those of Spain. Not only the mining and metallurgical 

 centres of the Andes and of Mantiqueria, but even 

 the sugar and cotton regions of Brazil, the Antilles, 

 and the Guianas, were developed before the plains 

 of the Pampas. 



The turn of the Argentine Republic did not come 

 until the growth of population in the industrial countries 

 of Europe made them dependent upon foreign lands 

 for their food, and until the application of steam to 

 ships made it possible to export wool, meat, and 

 cereals on a large scale. 



When we compare the economic organization of 

 Argentina with that of the United States, we see that 

 it is both less complex and less capable of being self- 

 contained. The difference is due to the architecture 

 of the country. I said at the beginning of this chapter 

 that Argentina has no equivalent for the zone of the 

 Atlantic tablelands, which is now the great industrial 

 region of North America. The industrial prosperity 

 of eastern North America provides a safe home market 

 for the farmers of the west, and relieves them of the 

 need of exporting their produce. Moreover, the Atlantic 

 tablelands, the original centres of population, where 

 the first generations of colonists lived on land that 

 was often poor, have seen the gradual formation of 

 reserves of labour and capital which were afterwards 

 used in colonizing the west. The east sifted, in a 

 sense controlled, the influence of modern Europe in 

 the colonization of the United States. It classified and 

 assimilated the new emigrants who set out for the west. 



