CHAPTER XII

BUSINESS LIFE IN BUENOS AYRES

Although I will not admit that Buenos Ayres is the most desirable place of residence, or that I should willingly pass any considerable portion of my life there, I can appreciate its fascination for the man of business. I was continually meeting Britishers who would, in the crudest fashion, contrast the Argentine capital with the cities of their Homeland, to the total eclipse of the latter, proclaiming that there was but one place on earth for them, and that was Buenos Ayres. But I never met an American there who preferred it to any of the great cities of his own country. These British exiles who so rejoice in their expatriation are undoubtedly maintaining in their adopted city an existence that in all points of comfort cannot be compared with that within the reach of a person of very moderate means at home. Yet they are by no means to be regarded as asserting loudly what they only half-believe. It is more than probable that they are honestly convinced of what they say, and that, so far as they are concerned, they do but utter the simple truth.

The secret of the matter lies in the fact that in the Argentine, as, indeed, in most alert young countries, there is a quick response to the efforts of the business man, which is but rarely experienced in the markets of the Old World. In this progressive Republic we have the phenomenon of some seven million people, of whom more than twenty per cent. are accessible in one city, crying out for commodities. It is a country almost destitute of industrial resources, lacking coal, minerals, wood, the essential elements of industrial life, for though minerals and wood do exist within the political delimitations of the Republic, they are geographically distant from the centres of population. Imported coal is extremely costly, while water power, owing to the extraordinary flatness of the land and the sluggishness of its rivers, is difficult, if not impossible to utilise. So that, for all practical purposes,—unless the discovery of oil deposits in the southwest may work a revolution in industrial possibilities,—we may regard the Argentine as a country at present limited to the pursuits of agriculture and cattle-rearing. These are the true bases of its wealth; for the development of these have English capitalists poured some £150,000,000 of money into the country, to cover it with a system of admirably constructed and well-managed railways. Mainly on the strength of these industries, have British, French, and other foreign investors taken up the millions of Government Stock for the national development of the Republic. In all some £300,000,000 of British money have been invested in the country.

Thus we may view the people as divided into two great camps: those who work the land and breed cattle, and those who make a living (and something to spare) by supplying the requirements of the former class, acting as middle-men between the European or North American exporter and the Argentine consumer. Roughly into one or other of these very disproportionate classes every worker in the Argentine must come, although, of course, there are endless variations of relativeness, if one cares to search for them. It is true that here and there some slight industrial progress falls to be noted. There is a good deal of tobacco making; there is more than one successful paper-making enterprise; in a timid way there is even the founding of iron; but broadly speaking, industries, apart from the land, do not exist. It is true you can get a table made, but it will be a very insecure table, it will also be very expensive, and you will be sorry you did not buy an imported one. The same applies to many other simple kinds of manufactured articles, which might, with a little patience and care, be successfully and profitably produced in the Argentine; but it is a safe assumption that for many years to come,—probably not within the lifetime of the present generation—there is no likelihood of national industry developing to such an extent that it would be able to replace in any great measure the imported article.

Meanwhile, the commission agent is enjoying a golden age of gain. It is a fairly easy matter to induce people to purchase who are in a chronic state of needing all sorts of commodities, living, as they do, in a country which is but poorly supplied even with the commonest necessities of modern domestic life. The commission agent has merely to announce the fact that he has made arrangements with Messrs. So & So, the well-known manufacturers of this or that, and will be pleased to supply it on certain terms, for his customers to find him out and make him busy,—granted that the article in question is one for which there is a real need. The crudest sort of advertising, the baldest form of announcement, will prove almost as effective as the most skilful propaganda would at home.

So it happens you will find many British residents of the meagrest intellectual endowments who have acquired considerable fortunes by doing nothing more brilliant than I have indicated, but who have been lucky enough—or shrewd enough, if you will—to secure the representation of some useful British or American-made device, such as a windmill water-pump, of which many thousands are in use throughout the country; a mechanical cash register, without which no Argentine business establishment is complete; a patent grass cutter; or almost any conceivable article of general utility. While the primal wealth of the country may come, as it does the world over, from the land, the most substantial profits made are those that go into the pockets of the agents, many of them unskilled, who handle the imported manufactured goods which the people of the country require in exchange for their grain, their cattle, their cow-hides, and their wool. Economically, of course, this is an unfortunate state of things, but I am concerned not with things as they ought to be, but as they are, and this is the present condition of the Argentine.

The net result of all this is a very pronounced feeling of briskness in almost every branch of commerce. The country is steadily progressing in its agricultural development, the Government is steadily borrowing to advance public works, and, except for the temporary set-back in 1913, it may be said that credit all round has continued extremely good for many years. Consequently, men of business do not haggle and discuss the fractional profits with which manufacturers and merchants have now-a-days to be content in the older countries of the world, and especially when there is a large amount of borrowed capital floating throughout a country, there is sure to exist something of that spendthrift feeling which we always associate with the individual borrower. This tends to make commercial conditions extremely “easy.” Given that A possesses the article which B wants, or thinks he wants, or which perhaps A has told him he ought to have, there is every likelihood that B will purchase the same at A’s price, or, if he insists on a reduction, that will probably be the result of a personal knowledge of A, who is most likely in the habit of placing a specially high profit on any article he offers to B, intending to rebate the excess of profit. This used to be the sole method of doing business throughout the Latin-American market, and here and there lingering traces of the Moorish system of asking double or treble what one expects to receive for an article, may be detected.

Until quite recently, much of the shopping in Buenos Ayres was conducted on this ancient Oriental system of beating down the seller. No Argentine lady would ever have dreamed of paying what the shopkeeper asked her, and, equally, no shopkeeper would ever have dreamed of asking the customer what he expected eventually to accept; but the Argentines, more alert than most Latin-Americans, and more anxious to put themselves in line with Anglo-Saxon business methods, have largely abandoned this obsolete farce, and now in most business houses and in most of the shops, _precio fijo_ is the order of the day. The thanks of the shopkeeping community are particularly due to the pioneer house of Messrs. Gath & Chaves, the largest department stores in the Southern continent, who virtually broke down the old system when they opened their great establishments some years ago and announced that all goods would be sold at fixed prices. At first they had to turn away innumerable customers, who simply refused to buy unless the prices were reduced, but eventually the battle was won for honest trading, and the system has been largely adopted throughout the country. It is true that small dealers of divers sorts still endeavour to maintain the ancient bluff. One day, for instance, in the window of a bric-à-brac seller, I was attracted by a walking-stick of a peculiar Brazilian wood. I entered, and asked him how much he wanted for it. He named a price, the equivalent of about $18.

“I’ll give you twelve pesos ($5),” I said.

“Muy bien”—(very well), said the dealer, wearily, as he handed me the article and accepted the money; and there seemed to be no feeling of shame on the part of the seller at endeavouring to secure so high a price. Assuredly, what I paid him was all the article was worth, and probably a little more than its real value, but, assuming that I wanted the stick, he made a shot at a price which he fancied I might pay.

This irresponsibility is characteristic of much of the business dealings not only in Buenos Ayres, but in all the South American centres where it has been my lot to make purchases. There is an extraordinary ignorance of intrinsic values. The restricting of imports, the delays of the Customs authorities (who will often hold up a valuable shipment from three to six weeks after its arrival), the lack of competition, all tend to the imposition of the most absurd prices. Just imagine asking three printers in New York to estimate for a certain piece of work, and receiving from A a quotation for $1000, from B one for $457, and from C another of $1825. Such disparities are absolutely unthinkable in any country where labour has been properly organised, where prices of materials have been more or less standardised, and where the only difference must come from the ability of one firm to save a little more than its competitors in its working methods. Not once, but on scores of occasions, I experienced discrepancies in estimates of which the above illustration is typical. Hence the man of business who merely employs one printer, without putting others in competition, may be losing heavily, as it is folly to place any sort of order without securing two or three checking estimates. Moreover,—and here the foolishness of the methods adopted becomes apparent,—I have on more than one occasion invited the printer whose estimate was highest by upwards of $500, but whose work seemed to me the best, to accept the order at the estimate of the lowest printer, and he has willingly done so! I also recall another printer who, on my protesting against an overcharge on an account for $750, made a reduction of $425, in order that I should not bar him from future work! This slight excess occurred on some work done without estimate. The same printer informed me that the account in question was based on the standard rate, which for many years his house had been charging one of the principal banks for the printing of their stationery. The reader will scarcely wonder, therefore, that we used to remark, in discussing these discrepancies in estimates, that it was evidently no more than a toss-up whether you were to be asked to pay $50 or $450, and in view of this it will be seen how essential is some expert knowledge of the work in hand to any person who ventures to engage in business in South America.

At the same time, the spacious feeling which comes from this disregard of small profits has its effect on the individual man of business, and the quick results which follow the friendly attitude of the public to all sorts of new offers is highly inspiriting. I can therefore perfectly understand the enthusiasm of an Englishman who, perhaps only moderately successful, or making insufficient progress at home, has emigrated to Buenos Ayres, and is enjoying the delights of handling a rapidly growing and remunerative business, feeling that here indeed is the only land worth living in. For after all, to most business men their business is their life, and as there is so little to interest any man in Buenos Ayres outside of his office, conditions are mutually reactive, the inspiration of the business serving to increase one’s interest in one’s work, and the increased interest tending to increased business. In this way the business man becomes doubly a worker, and knows not even the Saturday afternoon holiday, an English institution that is very slowly, if at all, creeping into even the English offices in Buenos Ayres.

Most business men have admitted to me that, while they like the place, it is only a place for working and sleeping in, and I suspect the majority of cherishing in their heart of hearts the hope of returning to their native land some day for good. I have known men who have lived there over thirty years, and who have lost every relative and friend they ever possessed at home, go back after all and close their account with Buenos Ayres. On the other hand, not a few I have met who, having retired to England, to France, or to Germany, as the case may have been, have eventually returned to settle and die in Buenos Ayres. These are the people who say there is “a something” that draws them back. They would even have you believe there is about South America that strange, intangible glamour of the East, which brings most who have lived in the Orient under its spell. This I will not believe; there is no glamour, there is no romantic beauty, there is no sensuous delight in the atmosphere of all South America. What happens is a far other thing. Men become so devoted to their business, under the conditions I have outlined, so engrossed in the mere circumstance of their prosperous affairs, that, neglecting all other interests in life, they have nothing left to them but their business, and when they return to their native lands, they have not brought that with them, and where their business is their heart is also. Glamour, no, but business, yes,—as one would say in the phraseology of the country.

Seldom missing an opportunity of making inquiries as to the business success of all sorts of people with whom I came into contact, I might set forth some quite remarkable examples of how the conditions in Buenos Ayres compare very favourably, from certain points of view, with those at home, were it not that I hesitate to use the experience of friends in such wise that some readers might identify them.

M. Jules Huret, in his admirable work, to which reference has already been made, offers many notable examples of prosperous careers in different branches of trade and commerce, related to him in his various travels throughout the Republic; but in every case these narratives were given for publication. I cannot fairly do the same with much of the information in my possession, but I purpose giving, as nearly as may be, the particulars of three comparatively young men of my acquaintance, and contrasting their present conditions with what, in all likelihood, would have been their positions in England had they remained at home.

The first, whom I shall distinguish as Mr. X., is a young man of very considerable natural talent. In personal characteristics he is the very antithesis of the “pushing” young fellow, and, I rather suspect, had permitted others to push ahead of him at home. At all events, essaying a venture on his own account in London, it turned out badly, and he found it necessary to take up his profession again as an employee in a moderately responsible position, receiving not more than $1750 per annum. His integrity being above suspicion, his ability unquestioned in his particular profession, which calls for much precise knowledge and long years of study, he happened fortunately, when he applied for the post of Manager of a very large enterprise in the Argentine, favourably to impress the selective committee, and was engaged. In this very responsible position he has, to my knowledge, greatly improved the conditions of his company, extended its work, increased its profits, sent up its shares. His remuneration, instead of being $1750 per annum, is about $10,000, and may increase, according to results, to double that figure. The business in which he is engaged is of the same nature as he has been employed in all his life, and to which he was trained in the provinces of England.

Take Mr. Y., another young man, outwardly more suggestive of liveliness, sparkle, capacity, than Mr. X., but probably no better endowed intellectually. Mr. Y., who is not quite thirty, is at the present time director of the South American interests of an important English firm, handling contracts in the Argentine and in Uruguay for hundreds of thousands of pounds, and himself earning a salary and commission something in the neighbourhood of $10,000 per annum. This Mr. Y. would have had reason to count himself singularly fortunate if, remaining in England and engaged in the same class of work, he at the present time had been enjoying a salary of say $2500 per annum. Moreover, in common with Mr. X., he has that splendid influence in character building which comes from the fine sense of self-reliance imposed upon one by having to control the destinies of many employees and decide large and vital questions on one’s own initiative. Such positions for men of thirty to forty are extremely few in England, but are by no means uncommon in South America.

As regards Mr. Z., I think I may state without fear of identifying him that his profession is that of architect. The architects in Buenos Ayres are among the busiest of professional men. One can scarcely walk for five minutes in any direction without noting building operations, and for scores of years to come the more central parts of the city will be in a state of rebuilding, as all the smaller and old-fashioned houses are bound to give way to modern steel and concrete structures. Hence the skill of the architect is in high request, and likely so to continue, although it must be admitted there is plenty of competition, as Italians, French, German, and all nationalities are represented in the ranks of the profession. The extraordinary cosmopolitan character of the city also justifies the variety of races among its architects, every conceivable European style, not to mention many inconceivable styles, being favoured by the property owners. Mr. Z., however, is an Englishman, and as an architect I confess he is no better than the ruck, but I believe he has the recommendation of being honest, and for that reason, if for no outstanding ability of any other kind, he has earned substantial success, so that it is no unusual thing for him, in the course of the year, to find himself in pocket to the tune of $15,000 to $20,000, which, I imagine, is by no means an ordinary sum for even an architect of unusual ability to earn in England.

It so happens that not a single one of these young men I have mentioned really likes Buenos Ayres, but each is delighted with his particular work, and I am strongly of opinion that in the fulness of time they will all become submerged in the said work. That is to say, they will go the way of those I have already described, who, yearning at heart to be home again, become so engrossed in their business, trade, or profession, that unconsciously with the lapse of years they grow into veritable slaves of their business and cannot live without it. If a man can make his fortune under four or five years in Buenos Ayres and then withdraw, all may be well; but beyond that time, it seems to me, the genuine fascination which the spirited commercial life of the place exercises on any keen man of business will become too strong to permit of his cutting the traces, and I am just as sure that a day will come when, in totting up his profits and losses, he will feel he ought to put down on the debit side of his ledger of life a very large figure to represent what he has lost in his long years of exile from his home land.

In connection with Mr. Z., I mentioned the fact of his honesty, which, it goes without saying, applies equally to Mr. X. and Mr. Y. Here we touch one of the most important matters in the business life of South America. Honesty is a quality that does not bulk unduly in South American character. Having had peculiar opportunities of testing the honesty of the general public throughout the Argentine, Uruguay, and Chili, and having listened to all sorts of local and foreign stories about the shameless disregard for the ordinary usages of decent straight-forward business said to be characteristic of one country more than another, I am persuaded that there is little to choose in this matter between South Americans in general, if we exclude the Indians and _mestizos_, or half-breeds. In Buenos Ayres it takes very little searching indeed to discover Englishmen as dishonest and unworthy of trust as any scoundrelly native. Nay, I am not at all sure that worthless English emigrants and English-speaking _porteños_—children born of English parents in the Argentine, who speak both languages equally well—cannot give most of the tricky natives and unscrupulous foreigners a strong lead in the matter of dishonesty.

Individually, I found among the native population a very high percentage of men of the strictest commercial integrity, men who were _caballeros correctísimos_, not merely in the formal sense of the phrase, but in actuality. At the same time, I am forced to confess that there is something in the atmosphere of Buenos Ayres which seems to depreciate the importance of business rectitude. Ask me to describe this with any definiteness, and I am afraid I should fail, but the fact remains that one is conscious of the feeling every day and in every business relationship. It may be the influence of old tradition, the result of the Argentine capital having been for so long the resort of all sorts of foreign criminals and justice-bilkers, as much as the experience of business men in their dealings with Buenos Ayres houses to-day. But whatever the extent or reality of this commercial dishonesty may be, it is a factor to be reckoned with, and in all negotiations with commercial houses it is no doubt well to look carefully at their references if their credentials are unknown. A _procurador_, or attorney, for instance, who was employed very successfully in connection with certain legal matters that came under my notice, and who did his work so well and so profitably to those who feed him that it was suggested to establish in other parts of the country similar connections for the recovery of debts, said to his clients, “Unfortunately, I know of no other honest procurador in the Argentine with whom I could co-operate in carrying out your suggestion”! The gentleman who reported the matter to me stated that he entirely believed his attorney spoke the truth as to the lack of honest lawyers, and he even had his doubts about him! But how can we expect the legal fraternity to be shiningly honest when we know that justice is poisoned at its source; that the Argentine Law Courts have nothing to learn and can probably teach even Tammany something new in chicanery?

Let me give but one instance of how justice is administered. A young Spaniard, one of many employed in a certain undertaking in which I was interested, had to be discharged for dishonesty. He was an attractive, gentlemanly young man, with tastes beyond his means,—which is all that needs to be said of nine-tenths of the swindlers in Buenos Ayres. Discharged for dishonesty, he was immediately admitted as a clerk in—of all places in the world—a very prosperous bank! Within six weeks of his admission to the bank, he contrived to steal some $3500, a portion of which went to wipe out gambling debts, some $1500 he sent to Spain, and the remainder, nearly $1000, he lodged in another bank. Arrested, he was so conscious of the absolute proof of his guilt, that he signed a statement written by his own lawyer admitting the whole matter, hoping thus to be clemently dealt with. The case came before a young judge who took a personal liking to the prisoner, and deliberately made up his mind to discharge him. This seemed a difficult thing to do in face of the signed confession.

Among the witnesses called was the gentleman who had discharged him for dishonesty prior to his being admitted to the bank. This gentleman was called because the prisoner had given his name as that of his previous employer. The only question the judge would allow the witness to answer was “When in your employment did the prisoner strike you as a person who would be likely to have committed this forgery in the bank?” The witness, having no wish to force the prisoner into jail, answered “No.” The judge then asked the prisoner whether, in view of the fact that his alleged confession was written by a third person and only signed by him, he had been fully conscious of what that document contained, and whether he realised precisely the gravity of the admissions therein. The prisoner seemed somewhat bewildered as to how he should reply, and, not quite realising that the judge had actually turned himself into advocate for the defence, seemed on the point of committing himself by accepting full responsibility, when the judge, silencing him and whispering with the clerk for a few moments, asked the prisoner not to answer until he had consulted with his lawyer. The clerk of the court withdrew, with a sign to the prisoner’s lawyer, who, also leaving the court, returned presently and whispered a few words to the prisoner.

The forger was then asked by the judge to state exactly how the confession had been secured. Now, nothing loath, he brazenly asserted that he had signed it most unwillingly, not realising how it incriminated him, and so forth. Result: prisoner not only discharged, who, according to the law of the land could have been put in jail for three years, but by an order of court, the money which he had stolen from one bank and lodged in another, and which had meanwhile been arrested by the court, restored to him!

Is it surprising, in face of an experience such as this, that the business world teems with minor employees who have been guilty of all sorts of thefts and dishonest practices, but whom employers have not prosecuted because conviction is so difficult to secure and legal expenses are so heavy? A friend of mine who was robbed of $4000 by an employee, who forged his signature and imperilled his credit in various directions, spent so much time and money in endeavouring to secure the conviction of the wrongdoer that he eventually gave up the struggle and left him to be liberated from the jail where he had lain for some seven or eight months without a trial.

Here, then, is probably the real reason of this feeling of low business morality which undoubtedly does prevail in Buenos Ayres—the laxity of the law and the difficulty of securing justice. A further example and one of very recent date will serve to show to what extent audacity attains in the commercial world of Buenos Ayres. A cinematograph company secured at great cost from a European firm the exclusive right to reproduce an important film throughout the Argentine, Uruguay and Chili. In due course the film arrived, and was placed with a firm of photographic experts to make a number of copies for despatching to the various centres where it was to be exhibited, and where the exclusive nature of the exhibition was already being loudly trumpeted in the press. Those entrusted with the making of the copies did not hesitate to multiply the number by a dozen or more, and to sell them at high prices to competitive theatres. In this delightfully simple way, instead of one theatre in one town being able, as it had announced, to give the exclusive exhibition of the film, some eight or ten theatres were showing their unauthorised copies of it on the same evening.

Confronted with such facts, it is hardly a matter for surprise that many foreign merchants look upon Argentine transactions with suspicious eye, exacting conditions of payment that are more rigorous than apply in other quarters of the mercantile world. In the United States, I believe, and in England certainly, this feeling of insecurity does exist, and exporters are usually chary of entering into negotiations with unproved houses in Buenos Ayres. Then, again, it is so difficult to find local representatives of strict integrity that many large firms who have made efforts to open up business out there have eventually given up the task, one well-known maker of a very profitable line of stationery goods, for which there is a large demand in Buenos Ayres, confessing to me that over a period of years each arrangement he had made for local representation had eventually fallen through, owing to the slackness or dishonesty of his agents.

It is a lamentable fact that the general laxity of business morals has the effect of developing in clever men their roguish propensities, with the consequence that I have noticed all too often when the assistance obtainable in Buenos Ayres has been undeniably competent as regards intelligence and resource, it has failed in the matter of honesty, and, inversely, where honesty has been beyond suspicion, these other desirable qualities have been lacking. And thus we have employers deliberately, with eyes open, utilising the services of persons whom they distrust and whom they know to be capable of swindling whenever opportunity serves, simply because their other abilities are essential to the creation or extension of the business in hand. The atmosphere of suspicion thus engendered, and the high standard of incompetency in almost every branch of service, are two factors that must enter into the serious consideration of all engaging in the business life of the country.

I could describe at least a dozen individuals with whom, during my eight months in Buenos Ayres, I came into touch, all persons of the most obvious capacity and worthy of employment, had that capacity been wisely directed, but each, on close investigation, so tainted with suspicion of trickery and trailing behind him an inglorious record, that it was impossible to utilise his services. One person in particular, with whom I almost entered into an important literary venture, whose scholarly attainments were unquestionable, and who, at first, seemed a thorough gentleman, had, as I subsequently discovered, served three terms in provincial penitentiaries, and had even been guilty of attempted murder, which crime he had planned purely and simply for business ends, with a view to “putting away” a gentleman whom he and another had swindled to the extent of nearly $5000, and who was proving inconsiderate enough to invoke the law against the swindlers. This person, whose portrait and finger marks are duly filed in the Criminal Bureau of Buenos Ayres—where, by the way, the system of thumb prints originated—had, during his various encounters with the law, become intimate with a comisario, who, prior to entering the police service, had himself been a successful criminal, and continued, not unsuccessfully, his criminal career in his new capacity. With the aid of this official, the “liter’y gent” was able to defeat the ends of justice, and for aught I know is still busy under police protection fleecing new victims in or about Calle Florida.

The laxity of business morality is, of course, a concomitant of the laxity of general morals, or an effect of the latter, most of the commercial obliquity that exists having a first cause in the immoral life of the offenders. Just as it is the fashion of many Argentines, in addition to maintaining their legitimate wives and families, to possess openly two or three _queridas_; so among those who are financially ill equipped to play the pasha, the imitative spirit asserts itself, and even down to the office boys, it will be found when things go wrong with them there is “a woman in the case.” This, and gambling, account for probably two-thirds of the commercial dishonesty, and the remaining third has its most likely source in a pitiful effort to imitate their betters in the matter of high living, where the plainest of fare and the humblest accommodation cost more than genuine luxury does with us. Drinking enters very slightly into the account, as it would be difficult to find a large community where less tippling exists than in Buenos Ayres. Whatever there is of that will be found chiefly among British and German residents, so that any anti-temperance partisan desirous of proving that a temperate public is not necessarily a moral one, will find abundant argument ready to his hand in the life of the Argentine.

Turning from this unpleasant aspect of the business life, which is, after all, only one phase of it, and must not be allowed to darken completely our view of the commercial Argentine, there are several other aspects that must engage our attention, and perhaps to more profit. British readers especially will rejoice to know that their own country and its manufacturers occupy a pre-eminent position in the affections of the Argentine people. While on every hand there is evidence of great activity on the part of the Germans, who have laid themselves out, and with fair measure of success, to secure a large slice of the Argentine import trade, there is not only in the Argentine but throughout all South America a widespread distrust of the German. He is noted for commercial methods that are no more praiseworthy than many that prevail locally. His propensity for showing samples that are much superior to the goods supplied is notorious, and such progress as he has made may be regarded as largely the result of a readiness to flatter the native buyer by speaking the language of the country and dealing with him in terms of local usage. The Britisher, on the other hand, is guilty of the coldest indifference to the convenience of the Argentine consumer.

I have, for instance, met more than one traveller for a British house who has been visiting all the South American capitals and the great centres of population with samples of goods, and has not been able even to ask for a glass of beer in Spanish. I recall one gentleman in particular who, by the sheer merit of the goods he was offering, had done a very considerable business, and yet was so hopelessly ignorant of the native tongue that he could not even pronounce the names of the firms who had bought from him, or the streets in which their offices were situated! This never happens with a German traveller. He may make the most atrocious mistakes with the language, but he at least does attempt, and usually succeeds, to explain himself without the aid of an interpreter, and the Spanish American accepts any effort on the part of a foreigner to speak his native tongue as a compliment to himself and strives valiantly to understand what the foreigner is endeavouring to express.

Then again, British manufacturers show an unruffled disdain for local conditions in many of the articles they supply. Take, for instance, the sailors’ hats so much worn by children in England, and even more in vogue with the _niños_ of the Argentine, where everything that touches their naval aspirations is highly popular. Thousands of these are imported from England, and it always struck me as ludicrous to witness little Argentines going about with “H. M. S. Redoubtable,” “H. M. S. Dreadnought,” “H. M. S. Benbow,” or some such peculiarly British name, on their hats. Why on earth do not the British manufacturers have the common-sense to ascertain the names of the principal vessels in the Argentine Navy, and use these for the hats they export to the republic? Evidently the Germans are doing so, as occasionally you will see “Sarmiento,” “Belgrano,” “San Martín,” in place of the meaningless British names, and I was told these did not come from England. The patriotism of the Argentine and of every other South American is such that he would undoubtedly buy an inferior hat for his boy if it bore the name of a national warship, and even pay more for it than for a superior British-made hat with the name of a British man-of-war thereon.

All sorts of sanitary appliances are also imported from Great Britain, with the instructions for their use painted or engraved in the English language. Take “geysers” as an example. It often occurred to me in using bathrooms in various part of the country, where the geyser is an inevitable fitting, that it was not only bad business, but very dangerous for these appliances to be in use with English instructions engraved upon them. The working of a geyser is at best none too simple, and when every detail of its manipulation is explained on the machine in a language of which nine-tenths of the users are totally ignorant, the possibility of putting it out of order or of setting the place on fire, is considerable. Lavatory basins with “Hot” and “Cold” mean nothing to a native, who can only think of _caliente_ or of _fria_. The same applies to proprietary medicines imported from Great Britain and the United States (though American exporters are waking up to the need of printing instructions in Spanish), whereas German, French and Italian medicines are invariably supplied with Spanish directions.

In short, the pre-eminence of British goods, which I noted wherever I went, not only in the Argentine but throughout all South America, is in many respects undeserved. That pre-eminence is due to nothing but honesty and commercial integrity. The British manufacturer is, with few exceptions, an honest man, selling a good article at a reasonable price; he keeps his bargains, and fortunately for him _palabra inglésa_ (the word of an Englishman) is honoured throughout Latin America. But the German, if he cares, can also make good articles, quite as good as the English, and many German firms are honourable exceptions to the rule I have mentioned above, so that once an importer has secured German goods which are as sound as the English and have been made to suit local requirements, the English manufacturer has met the most serious kind of competition.

I attribute a great deal of the indifference shown by British exporters to lack of proper representation on the spot. So long as the demand for every class of imported article continues as lively as it is at present, and the local agent can dispose of the stuff he receives without undue trouble, he does not worry about making his service more valuable to his clients by insisting on manufacturers doing their business in terms of the country. Meanwhile, one finds everywhere the most remarkable evidence of preference for British goods, British brands of tea, British preserves, pickles, sauces, sweets, British machinery, clothes, furniture, are everywhere in prominent use and demand. A good deal of this preference is also the natural result of British capital having been so largely used to develop the country,—they say locally “British money and Italian labour have made the Argentine”—but let me warn the British manufacturer that things cannot continue as they are indefinitely; this happy condition of demand exceeding supply will change, and meanwhile if he is making no serious effort to consider more carefully the needs of his customers and to render them better service, his astute German competitor will be “climbing upward in the night”!

While British and American exporters are not always represented as well as they might be in the South American market, there is yet another point for their consideration—are they properly staffed at home for dealing with this particular field? I believe that not a few have clerks in their foreign departments entirely ignorant of South American Geography, if the “howlers” they commit are any criterion. The ignorance which prevails in Great Britain in this connection is notorious, and from what I have been able to discover, general knowledge in the United States is no more advanced,—less if anything.

One example coming within my own experience will serve to illustrate what I mean. Staying at our hotel in Buenos Ayres was one of the managers of a very large British enterprise, with agents in different parts of North and South America. One of these was stationed at Punta Arenas, a considerable town in the far south of Chili, on the Straits of Magellan. It is the port for a vast country in which sheep farming has of recent years been making remarkable strides, and where wealth is growing rapidly. This gentleman chanced to be on his way to England, and made a break at Buenos Ayres to visit his superior at our hotel. Among the subjects discussed by them was the curious fact that for three years in succession the agent had received at Punta Arenas an account from the head office for goods supplied during the year to a certain Señor P——, whom he had failed entirely to trace. One evening, as the manager and the agent were scanning the list of hotel guests, the latter exclaimed “Why, there’s a Señor P——. I wonder if that might be the man I’m after?” Further inquiry proved that the gentleman in question was a well-known merchant from Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, whose business had brought him on a visit to Buenos Ayres, and that he was none other than the mysterious Mr. P—— whose accounts were regularly sent to Punta Arenas for collection. The point of the story is that while Punta Arenas is distant 1350 nautical miles, or a full four days’ steaming south of Buenos Ayres, Asunción lies 825 to the north of Buenos Ayres—another three to four days’ journey by rail and river,—but the export department of the English firm was so little versed in these matters that it selected its remotest agent to collect the debt! Punta Arenas and Asunción were both in South America, and that was enough to establish a connection! This is but one of many instances I could give to show the lack of geographical knowledge even among British firms trading with the country.

Manufacturers in the United States show a much more intelligent appreciation of the possibilities of Argentine trade than those of Great Britain, although the latter handle double the volume of business.[1] Various trade journals published in the Spanish language emanate from different parts of the United States and are circulated assiduously among these Latin Republics, though, I fear, so far with inadequate result. It is the misfortune of the United States that not a few of its citizens who have gone south in search of “Spanish gold” have not always been noted for their business rectitude. The result is that while _palabra inglésa_ has become an accepted phrase in the language of the country, so has _yanqui bluff_, which may be said to stand for any sort of crookedness. There are, of course, as I shall have to point out further on, other reasons of a political nature which tend to make the South American at once jealous and suspicious of North Americans, and against these influences it is the duty of all good business men in the United States wishful to extend the market for their national products, to fight incessantly, making special efforts to show to the business man of the southern continent that they are actuated by nothing but the strongest desire to cultivate a friendly commercial intercourse and an increasing exchange of commodities between the North and the South. At the present time, the United States is the chief source of supply for office furniture, typewriters, cash registers, and also competes with considerable success in the market for agricultural machinery. But in all these directions, and especially the last-named, there is enormous room for expansion.

Here is another aspect of business life that calls for the careful consideration of all who are ambitious of securing a share of the profits that await the seller in these lively markets of the south. The natural prosperity of the country is considerably exaggerated owing to the ease with which it has been able to borrow from Europe, and these heavy borrowings have led to general extravagance, raising the sense of prosperity beyond what is justified by intrinsic values. I do not suggest for one moment that borrowing has vastly exceeded the potentialities of the country, but I do assert that it has anticipated these potentialities, and to that extent discounted future development. The possibilities of the Argentine are colossal, and its power of recuperation after the severest trials, such as ruined harvests or destruction of cattle and sheep through drought, amazing. In this connection, it is unnecessary to say more than that in one single summer the country has suffered the loss of several million sheep owing to a prolonged drought, without the community as a whole being conscious of any financial strain from so great a destruction of capital. The British makers of sheep-dip, however, would probably suffer a decrease of some thousands of pounds in their exports to the Argentine that year, and British wool-buyers who swarm over to the River Plate each year, would have to pay a great deal more for their purchases, owing to the shortage of supply.

Still, the fact remains that, due largely to the popular conception of the Argentine as the new Eldorado for European manufacturers, enormous sums of money are annually being wasted by ill-advised efforts to secure business for which competition has suddenly become keen. Now, we have to remember that with a borrowing people an element of thriftlessness is inevitable, and that there is a necessarily high percentage of wastage in the heavy loans which the country has secured from Europe. Hence that general sense of prosperity and abundance which on closer examination is often found to be more apparent than real. Right through the Argentine this spirit of borrowing prevails. They are a nation of borrowers, and in all ranks of society—by which is meant the various divisions graded according to the supposed dimensions of their banking accounts or their credit—the one notion of doing business is by drawing on the Bank of the Future. The countless thousands of land-sales, which have brought unequalled prosperity to one class of the community and riches to the leading newspapers (daily crammed with advertisements of these auctions) have been and still are conducted on the principle of _mensualidades_, or monthly payments. The hire purchase system is universal. Mortgage banks abound and flourish on interest rates that range anywhere from 8 per cent. to 14 per cent., many such banks offering depositors 7 per cent. per annum for their money, which they lend out at 10 per cent. or 12 per cent. to help landowners in the development of their properties. You will be told by local residents that this high rate of interest is perfectly compatible with the capabilities of the country, and that the Englishman, with his time-honoured notions of 4½ per cent. on land mortgage, is a hopeless back number in the Argentine. There may be some truth in this, but it is difficult to get away from the feeling that there is the hectic flush of unhealthiness in any system that demands such high rates for its financial accommodation.

As one could fill a whole book discussing nothing else than the aspects of the various branches of commercial enterprise, all so different in their essentials from most of our home conditions, I am making no attempt to enter into detailed consideration of the subject, but to illustrate broadly the danger I have hinted at, arising from the almost uncanny feeling of prosperity which the peculiar conditions of the country have induced.

I may touch briefly on the motor-car business. Although, as I have already stated, there are few countries in the world less attractive from the point of view of motoring than the Argentine, where roads such as we know them in Europe, or even in North America, simply do not exist; and no large city so ill-adapted for motoring as Buenos Ayres, where the principal streets are extremely narrow and badly kept, while those of the suburbs are almost entirely unpaved; the popularity of the motor-car as an article of luxury and ostentation is supreme. The importation of expensive cars was proceeding in the most reckless manner during my stay there in 1912, with the result that I was informed by one of the leading automobile dealers whom I met in Chili some six months after leaving the River Plate, and who had come over to spy out the Transandine possibilities, that it was estimated by the various houses dealing in cars at the end of the 1913 season that there were no fewer than twelve hundred unsold cars in the store-rooms of the numerous agencies in Buenos Ayres. In the previous season, I think the highest number I saw on a motor-car was in the 4000’s. No wonder there was general talk of “the Motor Crisis” in 1913!

In my walks abroad during 1912, it was an endless source of wonder to me to contemplate the folly of the European companies in their mad scramble for this business. I saw dozens of establishments being opened at enormous cost, stocked with expensive cars and served by retinues of gorgeous youths who were to sell these to the fabulously wealthy Argentines. In eight months’ time, I saw more than one of those splendid establishments shut up, and doubtless since then many another has pulled down its shutters (the use of metal shutters which pull down from above is universal). Of one in particular I secured some inside information. It was a German concern, and it took a magnificent _exposicíon_ in a fashionable quarter, paying a rent of $4,000 per month. In the first nine months, it had sold some thirty-five cars, the total value of which did not greatly exceed the rent of the show-room. In addition to the show-room, the concern in question required a large warehouse and repair shop in another part of the city, so that the man of business will be able to gather how such an enterprise was likely to end. Moreover, most of those cars were sold at so much “down,” and the remainder in ten monthly instalments. I suppose it is a safe assumption that more money has been lost in the motor-car business in Buenos Ayres than is likely to be made in it for some time to come.

One particularly astute foreigner with a large stock of unsold cars devised a most admirable selling scheme. He made a bargain with a number of willing scoundrels that each should go to a certain organisation which provided any conceivable article to its customers on the instalment system, exacting from the customer an increased price, and from the seller of the article a substantial discount. These accomplices of the motor agent, each through this medium of the purchasing agency, bought one of his motor cars, tendering the initial payment, the money for which had been supplied by him, and the buying agency in due course furnished the car, paying the vender his trade price for it. Each car sold in this manner immediately came back into the possession of the vender, and naturally the accommodating financiers soon discovered no second payments were forthcoming. I understand this enterprising motor-dealer had thus netted quite a respectable sum on his surplus stock before his good work was interrupted by an unwillingness on the part of the purchasing agency to continue!

All this will serve to suggest the general looseness of business methods and the accompanying wastage that is going on, which can be attributed to no other cause than the ease with which the country has been able to borrow, and the avidity with which foreign manufacturers have taken the bait by rushing into the market without due consideration of its risks and the characteristics of the people with whom business has to be done. In no wise do I wish to belittle the commercial possibilities of the country, for I am a firm and convinced believer that South America generally is “the Coming Continent,” and that Buenos Ayres is probably the most attractive of the newer business centres of the world to-day, with limitless opportunities for sound commercial expansion to European and North American manufacturers, but by reason of its very attractiveness, the freedom with which money circulates, and the readiness with which the people burden themselves with responsibilities, the desideratum in all business enterprise is not boldness, but caution.

One of the most experienced native business men assured me that in land speculation, which is even a more popular form of gambling than the public lottery—servants and street porters actually owning “lots” they have never seen, and never will see, and for which they are paying every month,—the venders never hesitate to make the number of instalments run into several years, in order to make the individual instalment as low as possible, because the purchaser, incapable of a “long view,” in no case realises the burden he is accepting, and merely looks at the amount he has to pay monthly. The sum total of payments is seldom mentioned, the accepted formula being a small initial payment and anything from twenty-four to sixty mensualidades, also of comparatively small amounts. The vast majority of the buyers never complete their purchases, surrendering, after a year or two, what they have paid, together with the land, to the seller, who will probably resell it to another purchaser, who will also make default, and in this way the land speculator grows rich.

Every day the newspapers contain particulars of some fresh scheme for relieving the public of their money; sharks abound, and their variety is endless. From the point of view of the foreign manufacturer, one of the most pernicious forms of unfair trading is that practised in connection with the registration of trade marks. The law grants the sole title in a trade mark to the first person who registers it, and exacts from him no evidence whatsoever that he is registering that which is his own property. The outcome of this delightful state of affairs is that a fraternity of longsighted speculators has grown up in Buenos Ayres, whose business is to keep in close touch with the commercial worlds of Europe and North America, and the moment a manufacturer places a new article on these markets and registers his trade mark, one of these gentry hastens to secure the proprietorship of that trade mark for the Argentine, registering it as his own. His next movement—which may be delayed for a year or so—is to write to the foreign manufacturer and to state that he shall be very pleased to act as agent for the article in question, which he thinks he can sell to advantage, and indeed so confident is he of being able to handle it successfully that he has taken the trouble to register the trade mark. The manufacturer, if he wishes to introduce the article in South America, must then either appoint this nimble gentleman his agent or pay him an extortionate price for the right to sell his own article under its original name.

One example of how this works will suffice. The Oliver typewriter is sold in the Argentine by its duly accredited agent as the “Revilo,” because an enterprising citizen had forestalled the owners by registering the name “Oliver” as applied to typewriters, and the company, neither caring to appoint him its agent nor to pay for the privilege of selling their typewriter there, adopted the plan of labelling their machines for sale in the Argentine with the name spelt backward! Some famous brands of Scotch whisky cannot be sold in the Argentine, as a Jewish gentleman is in possession of their trade marks, which he registered in anticipation, and thus the whisky drinker will discover all sorts of unfamiliar brands specially prepared for export, while it is possible that the purloiner of the familiar trade mark may arrange to bottle any sort of vile rubbish under the well-known label. This is a state of things, of course, that can easily be met by the foreign manufacturer, whenever he is introducing any new article of consumption, taking care to have it formally registered in the Argentine at the same time that it is placed on the home market, so that if in the future he should wish to export it, he will be able freely to do so.

Owing to the accessibility of legislators to influence and bribery, all sorts of abuses arise. In Montevideo, for instance, a typical case came under my personal knowledge. A large British manufacturing house, which for many years had been supplying an article of wide consumption throughout South America and in Uruguay particularly, suddenly discovered that an excessive import tariff had been placed upon it. A large consignment of the article in question arrived in the harbour of Montevideo two or three days after the passing of the Act, and a battle royal ensued between the representative of the British company and the Customs officials, who endeavoured to exact the new tariff, but who were eventually defeated on the ground that the tariff did not date from the passing of the Act, but from the signing of the same by the President, which, fortunately, had not taken place until two or three days after the arrival of the cargo. This increased tariff had been imposed solely on the initiative of an ambitious Uruguayan, who had determined to manufacture a competitive article locally and got his friends in the _cámara_ to assist him by choking off the foreign competitor. The result was that the British firm had immediately to buy land and build a factory in Montevideo in order to get “inside the tariff,” which they did before the bungling native was able to work out his own plans, and so completely outwitted him. The probability is that the tariff will again be taken off, and the British company will be able to make the Uruguayan consumer pay for the inconvenience and expense which the unsuccessful trickery of their compatriot incurred.

Before turning from this subject, I must add a final word about the extraordinary incompetency of native labour, already mentioned, which conditions to so large an extent the business life, not only of the Argentine, but of all South America. Inefficiency is the keynote of the Spaniard as a worker. A complete indifference to the pressure of time is another of his characteristics, and both of these we find more or less eminent in the South American. The Argentine himself is steadily escaping from the influence of his Spanish original, and will eventually become a more wide-awake, competent, and altogether a more intelligent worker. But even so, he has still to rid himself of innumerable faults in order to come into line with what modern industrial conditions exact from the worker in France, Germany, and Italy, in Great Britain and in North America. The tradesman will dismiss you with the blandest assurances of completing the work he has in hand for you “to-morrow,” and probably you will discover a week later he has not yet begun it. He doesn’t care a hang whether you are pleased or not. The professional man will make no attempt whatever to keep an engagement within half an hour of the appointed time, and the employee does not believe that the interests of the employer and his own can ever possibly be identical.

There is but one way to deal with the Spanish-American worker, and that is never to encourage him, never to express your approval of his work, never for one moment to let him feel you value his services, and never voluntarily to advance his wages! The master who finds his native helper really useful and shows his appreciation by doing any of these things will speedily have to meet a demand for an impossible increase of wages, or to suffer the annoyance of seeing his employee “slacking” at every opportunity and assuming an attitude of disregard for his interests. The man reasons that if his master thinks so well of him as to advance his wages without a request, or to express his satisfaction with his services, he has become so invaluable to that master that he can presume on him by taking liberties which a less useful worker would not expect to be allowed. Presently, the only thing his master can do is to discharge the man whom he has thoughtlessly encouraged, and it may be that the latter will retaliate by waiting at the door and either shooting or stabbing the misguided employer.

Especially in handling the _peones_ is it necessary to maintain the severest, almost the most brutal conditions of discipline. Among my acquaintances in the Argentine is a wiry little Englishman, whose reputation as a disciplinarian is so widely known that his services are much in request to “clean up” estancias where unsuccessful managers have allowed slackness to prevail among the hands, or “arms,” rather: agricultural labourers being collectively _brazos_ or _braceros_, though the latter term is also used in the singular. He looks the last man in the world for the job, having more the appearance of a natty, little London lawyer. But he was wont to ride among the rough Italian and Gallego labourers, always complaining about the inefficiency of their work, and if one ever muttered a protest, he calmly smashed him to the ground with a well-directed blow on the forehead from the butt of his loaded riding whip. On various occasions he has even gone so far as to have two peones seize one of their number who had retorted to some complaint, carry him to a barn and strip off his shirt, and after having him tied to a post, personally apply a substantial number of lashes to his back. It might be thought that this was just the type of man to receive a shot some night, or a stab in the back, but that is not the way of things in South America. He has gone about his business for nearly thirty years and has won the respect of the creatures he has knocked down and flogged, as well as that of all the others who did not wish to feel the weight of his strong hand. No, the type of employer more likely to be assassinated is he who has treated his employees with ill-directed kindness.

I met a gentleman, the manager of an estancia, at our hotel in the middle of one week leaving for his home and heard the following Sunday that he had been shot dead by a labourer on the Saturday, because he would not re-employ the man whom the _mayordomo_ had discharged during the manager’s absence. The fellow had no grudge against the man who discharged him, who was probably in the habit of making his arm felt among the workers, but the manager, who had shown a kindly interest in the peones and braceros, and could, had he wished, re-engage this one, was the natural object of his vengeance. Another gentleman with whom I came into occasional relationship was shot dead one evening by one of his workers because he would not advance him a day’s money, declaring that he already had received sufficient for the week. Wages are paid nominally by the month, but improvidence is so common among the workers that seldom has a man, no matter his status, to draw his full pay at the end of the month, continual advances having been asked for week by week.

Therefore any North American or European house that purposes branching out in the Argentine is faced with difficulties that do not exist, at least to the same extent, in almost any other great centre of trade, and some allowance must be made to discount these in money values from the cost of doing business there.

Blackmail and “graft” entering so largely into business and politics, it would be surprising were it entirely absent from the Press. In proportion to its population, Buenos Ayres probably supports more periodicals than any other city in the world. There are about fifteen morning and evening journals devoted to Argentine interests, “national” newspapers; two dailies which cater for the Spanish community in distinction from the native Argentine; three or four Italian morning and evening papers; two English dailies (one of which has a wide circulation and is extremely profitable to its proprietors); two French dailies; two or three flourishing German dailies; one Turkish daily (containing four pages about the size of a New York evening paper, printed in Arabic characters), and weekly, semi-weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly publications almost innumerable, catering for all manner of interests and representing a veritable babel of tongues—Yiddish, Scandinavian, Syriac, Russian, Greek, Catalan, Basque, to mention a few at random. A mere glance at a list of these journals would be sufficient to indicate, even to the uninitiated, that they cannot all be getting an honest living. Those that are conducted on strict business principles are relatively few; the blackmailer is busy on the others. His methods are simple, naïve to a degree. The advertising manager calls upon you and states that he has seen your advertisement in _La Prensa_, _La Nacion_, _La Razon_, _La Argentina_, or _El Diario_, all of which are reputable and important journals, and that he would like you to put it into his paper, and if you do not think of doing that, his editor is contemplating publishing an article attacking you, and it would be a pity to let that appear. They are foolish indeed who allow such threats to induce them to use space in any of the numberless rags that issue from obscure printing offices, as the circulation of these sheets is so small, their influence so contemptible, that it would scarcely matter whether they published a full page denouncement of a Calle Florida tradesman as a thief and a swindler and offered their paper for sale at his door, so little attention do the general public pay to them.

On the other hand, there is an abundance of good journalism, and neither New York nor London can produce more profitable mediums of commercial publicity than several of the daily papers already named, or such weeklies as _Caras y Caretas_, _Fray Mocho_, and _P. B. T._ Relatively, the advertising rates in all these journals are higher than in American or British publications of the same circulation, but the ready response to the advertisements in them not only compensates for the difference in cost, but makes them work out cheaper mediums of publicity than the average in North America or Great Britain.

From every point of view, the Argentine offers to the man of business almost unequalled opportunities, but, as I have endeavoured to illustrate in this chapter, it has the defects of its merits, and he who imagines it a veritable gold mine where there is no more to do than pick up the nuggets and bring them home, is the most deluded of optimists. It will give rich return for industry, for intelligence, and for honest merit, but while the business man in search of new fields of enterprise may reasonably expect to do relatively better in the wonderful Argentine than in most other markets of the world, what I have written may show that business life in Buenos Ayres is not entirely a bed of roses.