WEALTH OF BUENOS AIRES 275 



proportion as its population and wealth grew, it 

 became a great national market. The products of the 

 provinces go to it, not merely to meet its own needs 

 as consumer, but in order to be distributed over the 

 entire country. The figures of the cattle trade on 

 the Buenos Aires market are instructive in this 

 respect. From January to July 1919 there were 

 1,130,000 head of cattle sold, 240,000 being for the 

 supply of the capital and 700,000 for the refrigerators. 1 

 Of the remainder, 120,000 were bought for fattening 

 and 40,000 by the butchers of other towns. The 

 capital of its own which has accumulated at Buenos 

 Aires is invested either in real estate or in industry, 

 which has found great profit both in the development 

 of local consumption and in the great stock of labour 

 provided by immigration. Buenos Aires is not now 

 content to be merely an intermediary between the 

 country and foreign lands. It contributes by its own 

 resources and work to the task of colonization and 

 the supply of manufactured articles to the agricultural 

 and pastoral districts. It is, finally, a luxurious city, 

 with every opportunity for the men who have grown 

 rich by the rise in the price of lands to spend their 

 income, and providing pleasure for the country folk 

 who come up occasionally, tired of their laborious, 

 rough and solitary existence. 



1 During the same period the Argentinian refrigerators killed 

 1,490,000 head of cattle. Therefore, about half of these were bought 

 at Buenos Aires. 



