360

TRADE.

PART IV.

To the late Mr. Peter Sheridan and Mr. Harratt Buenos Ayres is indebted for this new source of wealth, which bids fair to rival in importance the most valuable of her old staple productions. Although the greater part of the wool produced for some years did not exceed in quality perhaps that of the low Scotch wools used for carpeting and other strong descriptions of goods, of late they have been greatly improved, and some parcels are nearly as good as almost any wools in our markets.

This is only one of the many beneficial results which have accrued to Buenos Ayres from a liberal protection. to foreigners, which has led so many thousands of them to settle in the city and province, greatly to the augmentation of its resources and commercial prosperity by their intelligence and industrious habits.

Whenever any real union shall take place between Buencs Ayres and the Provinces of the interior, which shall once more reestablish the moral influence and superiority of the capital over their still benighted populations, we may expect, as one of the most important results, an extension of a like policy with regard to foreigners, and such efficient guarantees for the safety of their persons and property as may induce them to settle in the interior, where they will assuredly repay the natives a hundred fold by teaching them how to turn to account the vast resources which Nature has placed within their reach.

Then we may expect the cotton and tobacco of the northern Provinces to vie with those of North America and Brazil in the markets of Europe, and a greatly increasing importation of the many other valuable productions of these countries which I have more particularly described in my account of the Provinces of the interior. To turn now to the

IMPORTS.

To show the amount of increase which has taken place in the imports as well as exports, I shall again for comparison revert to the results of the year 1825 as an epoch of peace and commercial prosperity in the Rio de la Plata, generally referred to. At that time the imports into Buenos Ayres from foreign countries were estimated as follows (after deducting charges):

say about one million and a half sterling, net valuation.

These results were taken from returns furnished at the time by the custom-house of Buenos Ayres. I have endeavoured but in vain to obtain from the same quarter a corresponding return for any later period; but although with more trouble, perhaps still more correct data may be obtained from the statistical accounts of trade and commerce which are now annually published by the principal exporting countries; and most of which are collected in the office of our Board of Trade, where every facility is given to refer to them. From these sources, as far as I can ascertain, the following may, I believe, be a fair approximate calculation, according to their own showing, of the present average value of the exports of each country to the Rio de la Plata: 1. From Great Britain

£ 900,000

500,000

170,000

120,000

200,000

220,000

£ 2,110,000

362

TRADE.

PART IV.

being an increase of about 25 per cent. in nominal value since 1825, although if we take quantities, from the diminished cost of manufactured goods in Europe in the same period, we may fairly assume that they have been doubled. In examining these returns, the preponderance of the British trade in the Rio de la Plata is very manifest.

The low prices of British goods, especially those suited to the consumption of the masses of the population of these countries, ensured a demand for them from the first opening of the trade. They are now become articles of the first necessity to the lower orders in South America. The gaucho is everywhere clothed in them. Take his whole equipment, examine everything about him—and what is there not of hide that is not British? If his wife has a gown, ten to one it is from Manchester. The The campkettle in which he cooks his food-the common earthenware he eats from his knife, spurs, bit, and the poncho which covers him-all are imported from England.

The cheaper we can produce these articles the more they will take, and thus it is that every improvement in our machinery at home which lowers the price of these manufactures, tends to contribute (we hardly perhaps know how much) to the comforts of the poorer classes in these remote countries, and to perpetuate our hold over their markets; for in the sale of these goods no other foreign country can compete with Great Britain in the low cost of their production; and as to any native manufactures, it would be idle to think of them in a country as yet so thinly peopled, where every hand is wanted, and may be turned to a tenfold better account, in augmenting its natural resources and means of production, as yet so imperfectly developed.

Besides our cotton goods, we also send to Buenos Ayres considerable quantities of woollen, linen, and silk manufacture, ironmongery and cutlery, hardwares of all kinds, coarse and fine earthenware, glass, coals, &c., &c., &c.

The value of our exports to the Rio de la Plata, taking the average of years of peace, from 1822 to 1825 was annually between 700,000l. and 800,000l.; in the next twenty years it fell to about an average of 600,000l. a

year. Since the middle of 1848, when the last French blockade of Buenos Ayres ceased, to the end of 1850, the declared value of exports from Great Britain is

For the last six months of 1848

In all 1849

1850

£ 605,953

1,399,575

909,280

of which perhaps the last year would give the fairest notion of what may be the present annual requirements of these countries.

It may seem strange that with so large an increase in the general trade of these countries, the value of that from Great Britain has to all appearance varied so little in the last twenty-five years. But it must be borne in mind, that when first the trade of the Rio de la Plata was opened, Great Britain had almost a monopoly of it, which she maintained not only till the general peace of 1815, but for some time afterwards.

The continuance of peace throughout Europe led, as might have been expected, to a different state of things; and as other countries began once more to embark in commerce, they found their advantage in sending their own goods to the markets of South America, which in proportion interfered with the importations by British shipping.

Nevertheless, up to about 1837, the value of the British trade with the Rio de la Plata exceeded in amount that of all other foreign countries put together; it is very little short of that now: but if we examine the quantities, we shall find an enormous increase in the goods we now send thither, from the greatly diminished cost of our manufacturing processes; which, in the article of cottons alone, constitutes more than one-half of all our exports to the Rio de la Plata, and enables us now to sell nearly four yards of these goods for the same price which one cost before 1825.

The annexed return exhibits the quantities of the principal articles of British manufactures and products annually exported up to 1825, and in 1849 and 1850. Their total value will be seen on reference to the table at the end of this chapter.

364

TRADE.

PART IV.

QUANTITIES of the principal Articles of British Manufacture imported into the Rio de la Plata in 1849 and 1850, compared with those imported formerly.

Next in importance to the British trade with these countries is that of France, which has wonderfully increased of late years, being more than four times the value of what it was in 1825. At that period the French imports into the Rio de la Plata were estimated at about 110,0007. sterling, they are now worth upwards of 500,000%. In 1849 they were valued at upwards of 17,000,000 frs., or nearly 700,000l., but that was a year of extraordinary excess, attributable to the raising of the blockade in the middle of 1848, from which a third at least may be deducted, as in the case of the British and other exports in the same year, in order to arrive at any fair average of the ordinary demand.

In that year the principal articles of export from France to the Rio de la Plata are given as follows in the French official accounts:

The remainder consisting of various fancy articles and made up goods chiefly of Parisian manufacture.