It was not my fortune to see Rosario, one of the leading commercial cities in the Republic, under the most favourable circumstances. During the few days I was there the weather was all it ought not to have been—dull and rainy and cold—and the streets, except in a few central thoroughfares, morasses of mire.

It is a purely commercial town. It puts forward no claim to be artistic or cultured, and it has no pretensions to be a leader of fashion. All the men in Rosario are engaged in money-making. There are big offices, and the business men are at their desks early in the morning and remain late in the afternoon. Great railway lines converge upon Rosario, and along the front of the River Parana there are miles of goods sheds and wharves, with ships lying alongside into which the elevators pour their streams of wheat. There is the constant shunting of trains, the shrieking of cranes, and the swinging of derricks.

The workers are the best type of Latins, Italians from North Italy, or North Catalonian Spaniards or Basques. Other Latins do not get much of a chance in Rosario. There are a number of Englishmen, but they are swamped in the total. I made inquiries about the relative merits of English and Italian working men, and was told that the Englishmen are superior, two of them doing the work which it generally takes three Italians to accomplish. But it did not strike me, considering the high cost of living, that the workers in Rosario are highly paid from an English point of view. Commerce is frequently held up by strikes. Indeed, there is probably no place where strikes are so recurrent as in Rosario.

This is a town which came into existence a century ago as a sort of military outpost to fight the Indians. Half a century back it was little more than a village, and in 1870 it had a population of 21,000. To-day the inhabitants number 200,000. It is a great port for sending abroad wheat, maize, and linseed; indeed, its exports annually are about 5,000,000 tons. As the country north of Rosario is rapidly being colonised, and as the town is the up-river port capable of receiving ocean-going steamers, its continued growth is assured. Though, of course, I do not forget the gradual silting of the River Plate into which the Parana flows, and the restraint this is sure to put upon shipping in the future, Rosario is certain to go ahead. The day is not far distant when there will be extended railway communication between Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia; and, as all the lines will pass through Rosario, it will get the benefit. It is reported that Brazil has coal mines yet to be exploited, and if this takes place Argentina, which is much in need of coal, will be one of the principal markets.

I spent an interesting morning in the workshops of the Central Argentine Railway, which are situated here. They are extensive works, though most of the engines on the line are brought from England. The majority of the workmen, naturally enough, are Italians, though the men at the heads of departments are Englishmen. The goods yard of the Central Argentine Company is as large as that at Crewe, and is ever busy with the great freight cars coming in from the west and north. When I was there the railway station was being transferred to another part of the city so that passenger and goods traffic could be more expeditiously handled.

Though Rosario prides itself that it keeps its nose to the grindstone in the matter of money-making, it is not quite neglectful of other sides of life. There is a fine system of electric tramways. There are huge blocks of municipal buildings, and imposing banks and theatres; but the law courts, whilst having a fine exterior, suggested a certain shabbiness to me because of the weeds that were growing in the courtyards. There is the usual race-course, and close by there is the Parque Independencia. And, of course, there is a Plaza San Martin, whilst in other parts of the town is the Plaza San Lopez, and the Plaza Jewell, presented by an Englishman who made his fortune in the city. Some distance outside Rosario is the English suburb of Fisherton, and I noticed that the Englishmen had fallen into the Argentine practice of calling their houses after their wives—the Villa Elsie, the Villa Florence, the Villa Ethel, and so on. As might be expected, there is a golf course. In the city itself there is a Strangers' Club, of which most of the members are Englishmen.

An evidence of the prosperity of Rosario is the way in which land has increased in value. Plots which in 1885 could have been bought for 2s. 6d. a yard now fetch £200 a yard. On the outskirts of the town, where a few years back a bit of land on which to build a residence—say twenty yards by sixty yards—could have been obtained for £5, it cannot be obtained to-day for less than £150. I saw one stretch on the river front which was bought twenty years ago for £2,000 and sold last year for £40,000. Twenty miles from Rosario camp land which a dozen years ago could have been obtained for £10,000 the square league is not allowed to change hands to-day for less than £100,000 the square league.

With nightfall the Rosario people give themselves up to pleasure. Attached to the big hotel there is a huge saloon, and whilst men play dominoes and cards, music is provided by a band composed of Austrian girls. There is a great cafÉ chantant, and every night hundreds of people, men and their wives, sit at the little tables having meals, or partaking of beverages, whilst a band plays and comic singers perform, or a kinematograph entertainment is provided. I saw nothing at all in Rosario to suggest it was a place of culture. But it is a town throbbing with commercial activity, and when business is over the people seek nothing more than the lightest of entertainment.