PROTECTIONIST TARIFFS 93 



The elimination of foreign wines and sugar and the 

 development of Mendoza and Tucuman were facilitated 

 by a Protectionist tariff. The details of this are very 

 curious, as they had to be adjusted to the natural 

 conditions. The need of protection is chiefly due to 

 the distance of the market from the productive centres. 

 Mendoza is 650 miles from Buenos Aires, Tucuman 

 more than 750 miles. Freightage on the railways is dear. 

 It is thirty-five piastres a ton for wine between Mendoza 

 and Buenos Aires, or nearly double the normal maritime 

 freight for the European wines sent from Bordeaux 

 or Genoa. The charge for sugar is about thirty piastres 

 a ton between Tucuman and Buenos Aires. Thus the 

 cost of transport is nearly one sixth the entire cost 

 of production. In spite of this common burden, the 

 need of protection is not at all the same in Mendoza and 

 Tucuman. The climate of Mendoza is excellent for the 

 vine. The dryness of the atmosphere keeps down 

 cryptogamic diseases, and the risks of cultivation are 

 slight. The crop is abundant, the frosts late, and not 

 serious. Hail is frequent, it is true, at the mouths of 

 the Cordillera valleys, but it is never general ; it affects 

 only a small part of the harvest. The curve of pro- 

 duction is very regular. It rises every year very 

 gradually, and in proportion to the increase of the 

 cultivated area. As a result of all this, the wine market 

 has a stability which the vine-growing countries of 

 Europe, with their less reliable climate, do not enjoy. 

 The protective tariff, therefore, remains fixed. The 

 duty on foreign wines in the cask — eight centimes 

 (gold) per litre — has not been altered since the intro- 

 duction into Argentina of the wine-industry on a large 

 scale. I 



I Mendoza is further protected by law against fraud. This legis- 

 lation is partly national and partly provincial. The national law, 

 which takes into account the interests of the merchants of Buenos 

 Aires, permits the manufacture of artificial wines. The provincial 

 law, in the special interests of the productive districts, is more 

 stringent. It prohibits the manufacture of artificial wines. It also 



