i6 
I A N D & W A T E R 
jLine I, 191 J 
extremely hard liit by the outbreak of the war, but the 
worst effects of the blow were felt only until about the 
end of 1014. Its recovery in exports during 11)15 has 
been one of the most spectacular commercial develop- 
ments of recent times. Argentina's imports fell from 
£82,000.000 in 1013 to but little over £32,000,000 in 1914, 
a loss of £30,000,000. Exports decreased during the 
same pieriod from nearly £1)4,000,000 to less than 
£68,000.000, or over £26,000,000. The total loss in 
foreign trade was in excess of £56,000,000, a huge sum 
for a country of less than 10,000^000 people. 
Argentina's Foodstufis 
But Argentina, producing staple foodstuffs where all 
of the other South American republics dejx^nded almost 
exclusively upon luxuries, was in a strong position for a 
" come back," and the more than £80,000,000 worth of 
the products of her fertile lands which were exported in 
the first nine months of 1015 is not only greater than 
for any other similar period in her history, but also 
e.xceeds by a good margin the total exports of any other 
complete years save only those of 1012 and i')i.^, Argen- 
tina's foreign trade for the whole of 1015. the figures 
for which are only just to hand, are as follows : — Exports, 
£100,000,000 ; imports, £44.000,000 ; total, £153,000,000. 
The following table, giving the percentages that the 
imports of the six leading countries bear to the total of 
Argentine imports for the last live years is a highlv 
interesting record, especially in the light of the figures 
for 1914 and 1915. The almost total elimination of 
(jermany in 1915. and the more than ten per cent, in- 
crease of the imports from the United States for the same 
year, are apparently its most striking features ; but I 
found commercial experts in \\'ashington inclined to 
rate the manner in which Great Britain, in spite of the 
turning of so many of her factories to munition works, 
was shown still to maintain her commanding lead, as an 
even more significant circumstance. There is a salutary 
lesson for the I'nited States in this, they say, for Eng- 
land's ability to hold her own in the face of great diffi- 
culties is very largely due to the huge amount of British 
lapital invested in Argentina railways and other in- 
dustrial enterprises. No more striking illustration has 
ever been furnished of the persistent loadstone money is 
ioT trade. 
isn 1912 l»m 1914 1S1'> 
Countrirs. Per cent. PMcent. Percent. Percent. Percent. 
United Kingdom . 29.6 30.8 31. i 34.0 32.0 
<icrmany.. .. 18.0 16.6 16.9 14.8 t^.^ 
United States .. 14.3 15.4 14.7 13.4 23.6 
Italy .. .. 8.0 8.5 8.3 9.2 9.7 
]•" ranee .. ..10.4 98 9.0 8.2 5.9 
liclgium .. .. 5.3 5.3 5.2 4.4 b.5 
If any Englishman has been inclined to harbour doubts 
regarding the industrial strength of his country, a study 
of this table — in the light of all that has happened in the 
course of the last twenty-one months — should go a long 
way towards removing them. In spite of all her un- 
precedented industrial, financial and military efforts for 
herself and her allies. Great Britain supplied a larger 
percentage of the goods bought by Argentina in the year 
1915 than in any one of the preceding years of peace. More- 
over, the figures, had I the space to set them down, 
would show more or less the same thing for nearly every 
country in South America. 
Business conditions in Brazil, due to a number of causes, 
but notably to unsound finance and the decline of the 
coffee market, have been going from bad to worse for 
some time, and the war only served to precipitate a crisis 
which would have been inevitable eventually in any case. 
Over a hundred million pounds of Brazilian bonds of one 
kind or another are held abroad, and irregularity of 
interest pavmi-nt has, in many instances, been the rule 
rather than the exception, for many years. This state 
of affairs was, of course, greatly aggravated by the war. 
The decrease in Brazil's foreign trade as a consequence 
of the war was rather staggering. Imports fell away 
from £66.000.000 in 1913, to but little over £33,000,000. 
practically lifty per cent. Exports fell from £62,000,000 
in 1913 to £44,000.000 in 1914. This startling decline 
continued during a part of 1915, but an improvement 
during the last quarter of the year in exports gave a slightly 
increased total for the twelve months. Imports fcil 
away to less than £30,000,000, however, about forty- 
five per cent, of the total for 1913- All countries suffered 
in their trade with Brazil for 1915. but England managed 
~ to maintain practically as good a lead in the percentage 
column as in the case of Argentina. 
The principal factor in Brazil's commercial troubles is 
colTfee, always that country's most important item of 
export. Something like half of the world's coffee supply 
is raised in the State of Sao Paulo, but owing to un- 
scientific growing, marketiiig and financing, the industry 
has been in a bad way for some years. With the war 
this condition was accentuated not only by the shortage 
of shipping, but also by the fart that coffee, being more 
or less of a luxurv, was one of the things Europe began 
to do without. The same causes operated to depress the 
Brazilian tobacco industry, and the heightened demand 
and increased jirice of rubber has not been enough to 
offset the loss in the two other great commodities of 
export. In a general financial and industrial reorgani- 
sation, the. first forerunning signs of which are evident 
in the increased activities of several strong American 
houses in the great repubUc, lie Brazil's best hope of the 
restored prosperity her incomparable natural resources 
so fully entitle her to. 
Chile's Nitrates 
Chile, through nitrate, like Brazil through coffee and 
the southern of the United States through cotton, was 
another region that was the harder hit by the war as a 
consequence of carrying' too many eggs in one basket. 
In 1913 the output of Chilean nitrate was approximately 
3,000,000 tons worth, at the prevailing price of £8 per 
ton, £24,000,000. The shortage of shipping folfowing 
the outbreak of the war, and the cutting off entirely of 
the German market, caused a slackening of the demand 
which forced the price down to £5 per ton, just about the 
cost of production. As a consequence, all but 36 of the 
134 nitrate '* officinas " closed down for a number of 
months. But by 1915 the increasing demand for refined 
nitrates for use in the manufacture of explosives increased 
the demand, and the price went up to over £9 per ton, 
with the indications good that this very satisfactory figure 
would be maintained through iqi6. The present "capital 
investment in the nitrate industry of Chile is over 
£30,000,000, about one-third of which is British, and this 
has proved a very important factor in enabling England, 
there as in Argentina and'Brazil, to maintain her strong 
commercial lead. Chile's foreign trade fell off about 
twenty per cent, in 1914 as compared with 1913, but 
much of this was regained in 1915, and the present rate of 
increase will make iqi6 very close to a normal vcar. 
A study of the trade figures for Peru. Ecuador,"Bolivia, . 
Uruguay and the other. less important South American 
republics reveal conditions more or less similar to tho^ 
prevailing in the three leading ones — German imports 
practically negligible, Great Britain steadfastly holding 
its own, and the I'nited States registering smali but con- 
sistent gains. From the American standpoint perhaps 
the most encouraging feature of the situation is less in 
the actual gains made than in the evidence that American 
bankers and exporters are at last learning from England 
the important commercial axiom, that trade follows the 
dollar quite as persistently as it does the flag. .American 
loans to or in a number of South American republics, and 
increased American investments in mines, water-power 
projects, railways, packing plants and other industrial 
enterprises, will unquestionably be more strongly reflected 
in the American trade returns of several years hence 
than in those of to-day. 
A significant fact, calculated to have a very important 
bearmg on the " trade war " which will be launched in 
South America immediately peace is declared in Europe, 
was brought to my attention by an official of the Pan- 
American Union just return-d from a swing around tho 
southern continent. 
" Except for the south of Brazil, with its 400,00.-) 
Teutons," he said, "and th- Chilean army, which is 
commanded by the ex-revo!utionisla and" soldier of 
fortune. Gen. Koiner, every part of South America is not 
only actively pro-Ally, but vigorously anti-German as 
well. This will be of small moment one way or the other 
as far as the course of the war itself is concerned, but, 
unless I am greatly mistaken, is bound to tell heavily 
agamst Germany in it6 efforts to regain its lost markets 
after the war," 
