LIFE IN ARGENTINE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 April 1939, Page 7

LIFE IN ARGENTINE

LAND OF RICHES & POVERTY. EFFICIENCY IN PRODUCTION. One of the most interesting travel talks that has been delivered to the Palmerston North Rotary Club in recent months was given by Dr C. P. McMeekan, of Massey College, who returned just before Christmas from a tour which embraced the Argentine. A miniature film was used to illustrate the points made by the speaker and these mostly concerned the stock that was to be found in that country. Dr McMeekan said that he visited the Argentine in response to a request to examine the fat lamb industry of that country from the quality point of view. Argentine was interested in building up the fat lamb industry which would be in competition with this country. He was given a free hand and was thus able to see something of the country that was not normally available to the ordinary tourist. He visited 40 estancias ranging from the sub-tropic in the north to the northern part of Patagonia in the south. It was a very large country and the population was relatively small, consisting of 12,500,000. of whom most lived in Buenos Aires. The balance of town and country, therefore, was abnormal and similar to our own country. The people were predominantly Spanish and the control of the country was apparently vested in the hands of those Argentinos of Spanish descent. Like New Zealand, the Argentine exchanged agricultural produce for manufactured goods and they supplied the same market. In addition they. were the world’s largest exporters of some types of grain. That gave us many points in common and they were particularly interested in several of the difficulties existent in countries dependent on the one type of industry. The outstanding impression that one gained of the country was the size of the estates. Those that he had visited varied in area from 10,000 acres to 500,000 in size. They had been, typical of the bulk of estancias and had been selected for that purpose. It was interesting to note that efficiency in production varied according to the size of the holding, but unlike the case in New Zealand the greatest efficiency was found on the largest estates. The smallholders were mostly illiterate southern Europeans and in the case of the men owning large areas they were mostly educated in Europe and came from a different class of people. They had been educated on those lines largely through the influence of British concerns operating in the Argentine. The second and probably the most striking impression was the extremes of riches and poverty. These were found side by side. This situation was largely due to the fact that the original Spanish migrants were still in possession of the land. The people of the Argentine had shown that they were capable of raising livestock and it was only recently that any interest had been taken in fat lambs. That was due to the limitation imposed on the beef industry by the imposition of quotas, which had made them take an interest in other things and among these was the fat lamb industry. Since they had shown themselves capable of raising one class of stock, there was no reason at all to prevent them getting a good footing in the quality fat lamb trade in Great Britain. At present they were operating under a quota of 4.000,000 carcases a year and their object today was to give a 301 b lamb, a type that was not produced in this country.