224 ROADS AND RAILWAYS 



able places for shipping cereals. La Plata, San 

 Nicolas and Villa Constitucion are served by lines 

 which cut across the lines going to Rosario and Buenos 

 Aires. This complexity of the system west of the 

 Parana continues to the north of Rosario, where the 

 lines that go to Santa Fe cut across all the lines going 

 to Rosario. The lines which run along the southern 

 frontier of the province of Buenos Aires (at Juancho, 

 Necochea, etc.) have, unlike the lines serving the 

 secondary parts of the Parana, all their traffic directed 

 toward the interior, and they serve only to bring to 

 Buenos Aires and Bahia Blanco the crops of the 

 districts they cross. They are dependencies of the 

 main lines of the southern system, and not rival 

 lines. 



When the most fertile part of the Pampean plain, 

 on which there is a regular rainfall to guarantee the 

 crops, had been completely colonized and covered 

 with railways, the national Government took up the 

 policy of colonization by rail in the national terri- 

 tories. The minister Ramos Mejia has attached his 

 name to this work. It has been suspended since the 

 beginning of the war, but it filled the last period of 

 construction of the Argentine railways. Ramos Mejia's 

 railways include the lines penetrating the Chaco opened 

 toward the north-west from Resistencia and Formosa, 

 and the lines leading to the interior of Patagonia from 

 the ports of San Antonio, Puerto Deseado, and Riva- 

 davia. We must add the line from Neuquen to the 

 Andes, made by the Southern Company, but with a 

 Government subvention.^ These lines, serving dis- 

 tricts with little population and inadequate resources, 

 will not for a long time make any profit. 2 



» The line from BahIa Blanca to the Rio Negro, of which the 

 Neuquen line is a continuation, was constructed in 1896. 



» The continuation of many of these lines was contemplated for 

 the future, so as to secure for them at a later date a long-distance 

 traffic. The Resistencia and Formosa lines, which reach the Andes, 



