HOME TRAFFIC 231 



cent, of the whole (average for 1913, 1914 and 1916), 

 and the proportion rises to 30 per cent, of the total 

 tonnage on the Central Cordoba. For several com- 

 panies the sugars of Tucuman and the wines of 

 Mendoza are an important element of their receipts, 

 not so much on account of the tonnage as the high 

 cost of freightage and the great distance to the centres 

 of consumption in the Pampean region. The carriage 

 of wine and casks brings the Pacific 38-3 per cent, of 

 its receipts (1913-14-16). The transport of sugar on 

 the Central Argentine in a normal year amounts to 

 5 per cent, of its receipts. On the Central Cordoba 

 the tonnage of sugar-cane and sugar carried amounted 

 in 1914, a year of exceptional harvest, to 42 per cent, 

 of the total tonnage, and was still 20 per cent, in 1916, 

 a year of very poor crop. The supplying of meat to 

 the market of Buenos Aires and the Pampean area, 

 with its dense population, means a good deal of long- 

 distance traffic in cattle ; the refrigerators taking the 

 better cattle of the adjoining region for the foreign 

 market, and the slaughter houses of Buenos Aires 

 being forced to content themselves with inferior beasts 

 reared in the provinces and the adjoining districts. 



The importance of these currents of internal traffic 

 has made itself felt in the organization of the Argentine 

 system. It has made it necessary for each system 

 to have not only an outlet to an exporting town, but 

 a direct connection with the chief centre of home 

 consumption, Buenos Aires. The narrow-gauge system, 

 which until the end of the nineteenth century had 

 been restricted to the northern half of Argentine 

 territory, north of the latitude of Rosario, developed 

 in the province of Buenos Aires after 1900, and 

 ventured to compete in the carriage of cereals with 

 the broad-gauge system (Company of the Province of 

 Buenos Aires and Provincial railway of La Plata). 

 This system connected with the narrow-gauge lines 

 of the north. The Central Cordoba, which had reached 



