THE ARGENTINE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 699, 27 November 1933, Page 7

THE ARGENTINE

some beginning EARLY DEVBLOPMENT MADE BY BRITISH PIONEERS. THE BARBED-WIRE FENCE. Buenos Aires, October 25. An Englishman, Ric'hard Newton, in 1845 iritroduced tjte first wire fence to the Argentine. Three yeiaxs 1 later, another Englishman, John Miller, imported the first high-grade cattle, a shorthorn bull. Shortly after th'at, the first railway was built by an American, William Wheelwright, who wa.s shipwrecked hereahouts and later planned the transAndean railway, though he did not live to see it built,, as the majority of Argentine railways were built; hy Engilish capital iand English' engineers. The trio, who probably knew each other, were mainly responsible, with men who introduced the first meat freezing machinery, and the first modern windmill, for the new era in Argentine pr.ogress. In 1883 the first packing house was built, and the time came when as much as £6500 would he paid for a young bull and ithe annual slaughter of cattle for export ran to 3,000,000 head. This remarkahle development was due largely to the initiative and enterprise of British landowners and stock raisers. Newton's wire fence has been worth untold millions to the cattle trade of the "pampa." Its chief use was to prevent the scrub cattle from mixing with the high-bred stock. Since Newton's time, the ,amount of wire imported for pampa fences is almost beyond imagination. Not merely shiploads but wh'ole navies were loaded with it. iSince the advent of the wire fence, steel rails . and the automobile, the gaucho has gradually disappeared, although peon workers, mainly Italians on estancias are still called gauchos. You now hear the term "very gaucho" applied to a European immigrant if he is a skilled horseman. Practically •all of Argentina's 11,000,000 people to-day are of European birth or descent. This is true of only one other Latin-American count,ry, Urugujay. There is ,a curions stream of immigrant workers, known as* "swallows" who help with the harvest and return across the Atlantic to their own oountry. It is estimated that 9,000,000 have made this round trip. English and Irish are the most prominent landowners. Many pampa towns bear English and Irish names. More than half .the people live in towns and cities. The Government has tried every known means to makj farmers of the "swallows." The depression has left its mark. lEconomy takes the place of the lavish expenditure of other days. As the country emerges, .almost- imperceptibly into better times, one notices a stronger inclination towards the British' tradition and Bi'itish et.hics in trade and finance. The relative volnme of British trade, both ways, is growing. A period of flirtation with the American money market has left a reaction which is intensified by nnI saVoury disclosures .at, Wiashington of the immense profits made hy New York brokers on loans to South America. The Anglo-Argentine trade treaty, the wheat agreement, and th-> reviv,al of British trade and finaneial infiuence afford, at the moment, an inspiration to .the people that is lacking elsewhere. By contrast, N.R.A. doctrines and their aftermath' leave t;hem unmoved. It is a safe guess that Argentine policy of ihe post-de-pression period will more nearly parallel the concert of British nations than in the immediate past.