In the following chapters I have endeavoured to indicate the essential aspects of colonization in modern Argentina: the conquest of the soil by man, the exploitation of its natural resources, the development of agriculture and cattle-breeding, and the growth of the population and enlargement of the urban centres.

For a new country like Argentina it is not convenient to adopt the strictly regional plan which seems to be the best means of giving a complete and methodical description of the historic countries of western Europe, where it is the only way to keep in close touch with the geographical facts. In western Europe each region is really an independent unity. It has for ages lived upon its own resources; each population-group has its horizon definitely limited; and the complex action of the environment upon man, and of man upon the country, has proceeded in each district rather on the lines of an isolated and impassioned dialogue between the two. It is quite different in Argentina. There, many of the facts which we have to record consist in an expansion of the population, a spread of methods of exploitation from zone to zone of the country, and the influence upon colonization of commerce and of the varying needs of the markets of the world.

It may be well to reply in advance to a criticism which my Argentine friends are sure to make. They will complain that I have paid no attention to the people of Argentina, the creators of the greatness of the country. It is true that I have deliberately refrained from any reference to the political and moral life of the Republic, the national character and its evolution, the stoicism of the gaucho, the industry of the colonist and the merchant, or the patriotism of the Argentinians generally. My work is not a study of the Argentine nation, but a geographical introduction to such a study.

I began the work during a stay in Argentina which lasted from April 1912 to August 1914. In the course of these two years I was able to visit most parts of the country; and, as the information I gathered during my travels is one of my chief sources, I give here a summary of my itineraries.

My knowledge of the publications on Argentina has two conspicuous gaps. The first is deliberate. I declined to study at second hand the documents and chronicles which are our sources, to the end of the eighteenth century, for the history of the various provinces that were to form Argentina. Hence the historical data on colonization which will be found in the following chapters relate almost entirely to the nineteenth century.

The second gap I was, to my great disappointment, unable to fill up. A large part of the local publications—official or other—maps, statistics, etc., never reached Europe, and Buenos Aires is the only place where one can make a thorough study of them. These publications were available to me until 1914. Since then I have been restricted to the resources of the Paris and London libraries, which are very scanty; and less has been sent from Argentina since the war. I have not the complete statistics up to date.

I trust, however, that this picture of Argentina has much more than a retrospective character; that it is not out of date before it is published. I may add that no statistics would enable one to solve the problem which Argentina in 1920 presents to an observer. Has the European War merely retarded the economic evolution of the country, or has it given that evolution a new direction? Will or will not the relations which Argentina is now resuming with the rest of the world be of the same character as the pre-war relations?

The effects of the war upon the life of the country must not all be put on the same footing. That some of the exporters to Argentina have gained by the war and others lost—that the share of the United States, and even of Japan, has greatly increased—is a fact that may be regarded from the Argentinian point of view as of secondary importance. The war has, moreover, had the effect of disorganizing marine transport and bringing about a sort of relative isolation which is not yet quite over. The reduction in the imports of English coal has made the petroleum wells of Rivadavia of greater value to the country. It has compelled the Argentinians to make a hurried inventory of their natural resources in the way of fuel. Local industries have tried to meet the needs of the Argentinian market, where they had no longer to bear the competition of European goods. The grave disturbance of prices has enabled them to export certain products which had hitherto been confined to home markets. The war has, moreover, not interfered with the existing streams of export on a large scale from Argentina. The Republic continues to send its cereals, meat, hides and wool to Europe; and there is no reason to suppose that the competition of buyers is likely to diminish, or that the cultivation of wheat and lucerne must become less profitable.

The two essential effects of the war seem to have been the stopping of the stream of immigration and the progressive reduction of the support which Europe gave to the work of colonization in the form of advances of capital.

From 1914 to 1918 only 272,000 immigrants landed at Buenos Aires, while 482,000 emigrants left the country. In 1918 the figure of immigration and emigration was only 47,000, less than a tenth of what it was in a normal year before the war. The withdrawal of European capital was felt from the very beginning of the war, and it has gone on uninterruptedly, capital from North America not being enough to supply the deficiency entirely. At the same time the extraordinarily favourable balance of trade has led to the storing of an ample reserve of capital in the country. Argentina has, in a very short time, won a financial independence which, in normal conditions, would have entailed long years of work and prosperity.

However it may seem, these two facts—the interruption of immigration and the accumulation of capital—cannot be considered independently of each other. The inquiry opened by the Social Museum of Argentina (La immigraciÓninmigraciÓn despues despuÉs de la guerra, Museo Social Argentino, "Bol. Mensual," viii, 1919, nos. 85-90) show that a speedy restoration of immigration is expected in the Republic. Certainly it seems clear that the political and social insecurity in Europe, the misery of the old world, will probably enhance the attractions of Argentina. We must remember, however, that the stream of emigration from Europe to the Republic in the nineteenth, and the beginning of the twentieth, century was provoked by a complex combination of economic conditions which were closely related to each other. High wages in Argentina were connected with the high interest on money; that is to say, in other words, with the scarcity of capital. The future will decide whether immigration, and the rapid progress of colonization and production, which characterize pre-war Argentina can be adjusted to the policy of accumulation of capital to which the war has condemned the country.