SPECULATION IN LAND 201 



to the land a value which is not based upon the revenue 

 it has produced, but upon that which the speculator 

 calculates that it may produce in the future. If the 

 speculator is audacious, he does not let himself be 

 discouraged by initial bad experiences ; it takes 

 repeated checks to exhaust his optimism. The colonist, 

 even if his farming accounts do not show a profit, 

 may nevertheless gain something if the value of his 

 land goes up. The increase of his capital conceals from 

 him the smallness of his returns, especially as he can 

 easily get advances on the value of his property from 

 the banks, and this enables him to draw upon his 

 wealth every year. 



Speculation is concerned with new lands on the fringe 

 of the area already colonized, where the soil is, as a 

 general rule, already in the hands of the exploiters 

 themselves. The speculators, having paid a high 

 price for these lands, try to organize the development 

 of them. It is partly owing to their influence that 

 colonization continuously enlarges its domain, instead 

 of concentrating its labour in the older districts where 

 it might sometimes be more productive. In fine, 

 speculation in land has a profound influence on the 

 conditions of colonization, making it more difficult for 

 the colonist to buy the land he is developing. The 

 owner who grants him the use of the land means to 

 keep for himself any increment of its value. He rents, 

 but he will not sell. 



Thus the history of colonization cannot be separated 

 from the traffic in land. The special features of this 

 traffic in the Pampean region — its concentration at 

 Buenos Aires ; the creation of a land-market resembling 

 a stock market ; the practice of selling on the instalment 

 plan, which enables small capitalists to enter the market ; 

 the repeated transfers of pieces of land which the buyers 

 have never seen and which they know only from plans — 

 are one of the most original aspects of modern Argentina. 

 They are partly due to a fact of a geographical nature — 



