Mr. Pitkin to Mr. Blaine.
Buenos Ayres, May 13, 1891. (Received June 27.)
Sir: On the 9th instant the President opened the Argentine Congress with an address wherein occur several statements that challenge attention.
The President announces harmonious relations between the national and all the provincial governments, the appearance of no serious revolt since his accession to power last August, the concord of hostile parties, then in arms, the wholesome result of the amnesty by him declared on the 30th day of August, 1890, for all who had engaged in the four-day revolution at the close of the previous month; and that the one exceptional measure thus far adopted during his executive occupation was his declaration on the 20th day of February last of a state of siege, which he deemed necessary by reason of public disquiets due to the financial prostration and to an assault upon the premier of the cabinet, and during which state he had recourse to no severer expedient than the suppression of several incendiary journals.
He states that Mexico and Venezuela have for the first time accredited plenipotentiaries to the Republic; that the question with Chile in respect of boundary awaits the termination of her civil war; and that, in maintenance of neutrality, he answered the request of the Chilean minister that a Chilean corps d’armée be permitted to cross Argentine territory with an assent to such passage by private individuals but not by troops in marching order.
He derives comfortable assurance from Argentine trade returns for the year that show a notable decline in imports, whereof $34,035,342 was for railway material paid for by foreign capital, and a still larger increase in exports, parts of which were 305,904 tons of wheat and 274,691 tons of maize; from an arrest in the tide of immigration by reason of a cessation in assisted passages; from the return hence to Europe of thousands of people who proved comparatively useless in a new country; and from the progress begun in local industries.
He exposes the failure of all attempts to colonize national lands, pronounces against the enormous and wasteful land concessions during recent years to private speculators, and states that many of these grants, where the conditions have not been observed in the establishment of colonies, have already been declared forfeit to the extent of [Page 10] 30,000 square miles, and that he proposes to reclaim as a valuable asset much more of the national domain thus squandered.
He states that the total length of railway in actual traffic in March of the present year was 7,190 miles, representing an outlay of £60,000,000, and of new railway in actual traffic since January, 1890, 2,100 miles, an outlay of £13,000,000; that thirty lines are in process of construction or survey, with an aggregate length of 7,870 miles; that seventeen concessions of a total length of 4,770 miles have been canceled within a year for failure to comply with prescribed conditions; that many of the companies in traffic have caused heavy loss in products, by reason of inadequate rolling stock—a neglect which he claims (and has exercised) a right to correct in view of an annual payment by the Government of $4,500,000 gold in railway guaranties; that Congress should refuse further concessions till a proper railway system be devised for the whole Republic; and that the national railways, sold to meet the foreign debt, yield no profit and draw from the Government in guaranty payments almost as much as it previously paid for service in its loans.
He adverts to numerous retrenchments in the abandonment of important works, among others the Buenos Ayres port works upon which $16,481,419 gold have already been expended; presents a brief but interesting statement of the educational and naval interests, and reviews at considerable length the question of finance; declares the total Argentine debt to be about £61,000,000; estimates the foreign capital employed in the Republic at £100,000,000, to which the recent decline in securities has dealt a loss of £20,000,000; recites the monetary measures thus far adopted and why he was compelled to close the two banks—the National and Provincial—at this capital, by which within twelve months the Government has lost $97,000,000 in currency and £2,600,000 in gold; ascribes the existing demoralization largely to reckless loans and paper emissions by State banks and a speculative fever; animadverts upon the wasteful sale in the market of gold paid by guarantied banks in purchase of bonds and deposits in the National Bank to be applied, two years after such deposit, toward a reduction of the foreign debt; opposes further issues of paper; calls for a parliamentary commission to ascertain the true condition of the State banks which, when shown, will determine the measure of correction to be applied to these institutions, which he conceives should be retained, though under new restraints; and concludes that a silver standard affords a sound metallic basis, the exception in Europe thereto having no weight in this Republic, and will be commended for local adoption by an executive bill to be transmitted to Congress.
I have, etc.,