82 



and cereals, for the gold lent on long term payments 

 to build the railways. 



PROPAGANDA AND POLITICS. 



But should not part of the task of bringing their 

 case before the public be actively undertaken by the 

 parties most interest ? Since politics form the sole wa/y 

 of attaining anything in this land, why should not 

 recourse be had to politics? In every, part of the globe 

 the railways exercise political influence and, decided- 

 ly, since ninety per cent, of the people employed by 

 the railways are Argentine citizens, there is 110 plau- 

 sible reason why, at least, the interests of these should 

 not be looked after, as they certainly stand and fall 

 with the prosperity of the institutions that employ 

 them. 



ROADS. 



Just as the elevator has proved a powerful adjunct 

 towards solving the transport of cereals, so too, indirect- 

 ly has it contributed its part towards helping us over 

 the road deficiencies. 



The difference in the cost of transport when cart- 

 ing has to be done over bad roads is found to represent 

 an additional 20 to 30% to the cost as against conveying* 

 over good roads ; on a dry level road, the force which the 

 horse has to exert to draw a load is about equal to one- 

 thirtieth of that expended on a bad rutty road and the 

 number of horses has to be increased, or the load decreas- 

 ed. The preference, as far as the average carter here iff 

 concerned, is decidedly for increasing the number of the 

 horses ; the characteristic of Argentine land transport is 

 the huge size of the loads, or at least of the average "cha- 

 ta" and its wheels, and the extraordinary number of 

 horses required to move it. If the average cost of carry- 

 ing each sack to the station represents 25 cents, over the 

 average Argentine "camino, " with good roads, this costr 

 would be reduced to less than 20 cents; of course by 

 good roads I do not mean as is popularly accepted by 

 the term in the camp, that is that the road is no worse 

 than it always is, or to be more explicit : by good roads T 

 have in mind ways free from ruts and "pantanos,' r 

 without necessarily being macadam surfaces. The quan- 

 tities of a good road are its ability to resist the action of 

 the weather. Owing to the average dryness of the cli- 



