51 



filled to their utmost capacity, and with considerable fa- 

 cility. By elevating grain, passing it through the eleva- 

 tor, which raises it to a certain height, and then shooting 

 it down a tube into the ship's holds, a vessel <-a ntakc a 

 cargo aboard in a few hours, for which operation days 

 were nvessary wh'Mi grain was loaded in sacks by hand. 



In a like' manner on arriving at its destination, by 

 the aid of a suction tube the grain can be transferred 

 from the ship's holds to the receiving elevator, and the 

 boat's cargo discharged with great rapidity. 



In our own country the great services that elevators 

 lend has been recognised and more elevators are being 

 constructed. 



The only cases of rapid loading ever recorded in this 

 country have been effected by elevators; throughout the 

 years of port congestion the only bright spot of all the 

 records of endless difficulties and mismanagement on 

 the part of the port authorities were the record loadings 

 of grain accomplished at the foot of the elevators; the 

 owners of which alone were able to claim and receive 

 despatch money . 



Had it not been for the elevators at the ports, prob- 

 ably not one third of the vessels would, have been sent 

 here during the crisis of ships following on the war, nor 

 would the belligerent parties have found it worth 

 whole to load grain from this country had such obsolete 

 methods prevailed in our ^>orts as they do elsewhere in 

 the land for the handling of cereals. Due to the facilities 

 provided by the elevators the charterers were able to 

 comply with the demands of the Allied Governments' 

 shipping boards for rapid despatch, the "sine qua non'' 

 of shipping contracts. 



With the help of the elevators of the Pacific Rail- 

 way Company at Bahia Blanca no less than 20,000 tons 

 of grain were loaded within twenty four hours on one 

 occasion last year. 



What could have been achieved in the way of suc- 

 cessful grain handling had all the proper facilities ex- 

 isted, would startle our sedentary governors, and there 

 is no doubt that the famous record of the United States 

 would have had a worthy second in the Argentine Re- 

 public ; instead of this we have had nothing to record but 

 one long series of ever augmenting difficulties. 



The economy of time effected by the few elevators 

 existing in the Argentine Republic, has nevertheless 

 placed thousands if not millions of pesos in the pockets 

 of the exporters who own or ^un the elevators, and per- 

 mitted trade in the country i'or hundreds of millions 

 of pesos. 



