Inflation', Bribery ', S'ul)sidies i Insolvency. 21 



Money was required to pay the army and the cost of civil and 

 foreign wars. Every dictator had his friends for whom provis- 

 ion must be made. Large debts were created ; banks were char- 

 tered ; 1200,000,000 of paper money were issued. There were 

 several different circulating mediums ; each province strove to 

 outdo the others in the issue of a currency which quickly de- 

 IJreciated. Companies for different purposes were organized, and 

 many were subsidized, directly or indirectly. We are told that 

 in one case $1,500,000 was paid for a concession, and that " Tur- 

 kish officials, who have hitherto been the champion artists in 

 backsheesh, leave off whei-e Argentine blackmailers begin ; the 

 price of a drainage scheme at Buenos Ayres would buy a whole 

 cabinet of pashas at Galata." 



Railroads were built running from Buenos Ayres in different 

 directions, as each province demanded a railroad, with little re- 

 gard to its population or business. 



A road was commenced to cross the Andes and open communi- 

 cation between the Atlantic and Pacific over mountains which 

 had never been crossed by a carriage of any kind. 



The country was not settled so rapidly as the rulers desired. 

 Inducements were therefore offered to immigrants. The passage 

 money from Europe and the expenses of the immigrant to his 

 new home have been paid and land for settlement sold at low rates. 

 It is estimated that over 1,000,000 foreigners have settled in the 

 country during the last twelve years, and the proportionate increase 

 of population in the same period has been twice as great as that of 

 the Unitecl States. Grazing lands have been sold at nominal 

 prices to immigrants, or leased for terms of years in lots of 6,000 

 acres at a rental of $100 a year. Bonds were issued not only by 

 the government but by the provinces, by the municipalities and 

 by the railroads, and all were readily taken in England and Ger- 

 many. To enable the emigrants to pay for and to cultivate their 

 land, the owner of real estate on depositing his title deeds 

 with the hypothecary banks and having a valuation of his real 

 estate, received cedulas, or bonds of the bank, for one-half its 

 appraised value ; these cedulas for large amounts were issued 

 and sold in Europe ; and thus, as ever, more money was required, 

 more bonds were issued. In 1889, a year of peace, the public debt 

 was increased 120 per cent., and it is now said to be over one 

 thousand four hundred millions of dollars, and the principal and 

 interest of two-thirds of this amount is payable in gold at a 

 premium of 200 per cent. 



