ABOUT THE FUTURE OF PATAGONIA 295 



farmer's time. Peones are necessary to look after the carts, and 

 their wage is at least ^5 a month and their keep. Then carts not 

 infrequently break down upon the rough surfaces of the pampas 

 and in the canadones, hence more delay. Even when the port is 

 reached difficulties have to be surmounted, for none of them, with 

 the exception of Punta Arenas, are served by any steamship lines. 

 This was so at the time of my being in Patagonia last year 

 (1901). Government transports from Buenos Aires had the whole 

 of the coast service of Argentine Patagonia in their hands, and 

 these could boast of only very uncertain dates of departure and 

 still more uncertain dates of arrival. 



All these difficulties of transit do not make for prosperity. I 

 understand that of late a German line has undertaken to call at 

 some of the ports, and if they carry out their contract it should 

 help events in Patagonia to get into the stride of success. 



On the coast-farms, where ships could and did occasionally put 

 in, especially in the wool season, money was made and men began 

 to see fortune ahead. But far away in the interior, where a very 

 few pioneers have made their homes beside a lake here and there, 

 the wide and uninhabited pampas lie between the producer and his 

 market. Until railways open up the land the position of these 

 people cannot much improve. They are too heavily handicapped 

 in the race. 



It is almost impossible to tell what enormous numbers of sheep 

 and cattle Patagonia could produce for the providing of the world 

 if capital and enterprise would but pave the way. In the meantime 

 the country remains the paradise of the middleman. At present 

 there is little money in hand, much of the trade is carried on by 

 barter, and on this system there is always an evil tendency towards 

 profits accruing mostly to the storekeepers, who gradually become 

 more or less masters of the situation. Many of the small farmers 

 are deeply in debt to this class. A hard winter — and there are 

 often very hard winters — fills the pocket of the storekeeper, for 

 they advance provisions, without which no man can continue to 

 live, and they, of course, thus secure mortgages on the farms. 



This same unfortunate liability is observable in other countries 

 where similar conditions obtain, but the opening up of the interior 



