For it has to be admitted that some of the attacks upon the bureaucracy are not altogether inexcusable. With the influence of officialdom forcing itself upon every interest of the working classes, the inevitable increase in the cost of living, and the instances of bureaucratic tyranny frequently brought to light, it is not to be wondered that the unorganised labourer adopts the exaggerated point of view of the agitator, and sees in revolution alone the pathway to reform.
In Buenos Aires, for example, the cost of living is greater than elsewhere, though the scale of wages is also higher. Imported goods are dear, rent high, efficient labour scarce, and municipal rates heavy. The result is that even the highly paid worker finds himself with only a moderate balance when all charges are met.
With the agriculturist things are not so bad. He can produce for himself most of the necessaries of life, and can avoid many of the burdens of the townsman in the way of expensive clothing and other imported luxuries. Strange as it may appear in a country supplying most of the world's markets, meat in Buenos Aires is nearly as dear as in England. The same applies to many other commodities produced or producible in the country. A comparative list shows few things cheaper in the Argentine than in the Old World.
The cost of the breakfast table might be reduced considerably if more trouble were taken with what one might describe as the by-products of agriculture. The people are invariably out for the big deal in cattle or corn. Insufficient attention is paid to dairy-farming, poultry rearing, gardening, fruit-growing, and the production of those little comforts that are now part and parcel of agriculture in England and France. The cultivator's first and, in the majority of cases, only thought is the land and its direct yield. With the same opportunities many an English small-holder would make a quick fortune in Argentina. In this oversight the Argentine has gone the way of most new countries. The question of "agricultural smalls," however, as I have shown, is now being considered in conjunction with the increased cost of living.
Labour is so scarce in some parts that the introduction of Chinese or Japanese colonists has been suggested. Such a step, however, would arouse as fierce a criticism as did the introduction of Chinese coolies on the South African Rand mines. They were tried in Chili, and are by no means liked. The lumber trade of Posados still requires thousands of workers. The natives cannot be kept at work to any extent, and to meet the demand Russians, Poles, and Finns have been brought over in thousands. Timber for railway sleepers is the principal product. Each year some two million logs are sent down the Parana River to be used in railway construction at home and abroad.