THE STOCK EXCHANGE (BOURSE)——History of this institution——Its importance; its functions; amount of business done——The decrease in its transactions since the cessation of speculation in currency or the monetary ratio.
The Bourse is a private establishment——Its membership and its regulations——Statistics of business done during the last ten years——Securities quoted on the Buenos Ayres Bourse—— Decrease in the total amount of business done during the last five years——The monetary reform of 1901 as a factor of this decrease——The place occupied by the Stock Exchange in the life of the nation.
_Joint-stock Companies_——The development of joint-stock companies—— Legislation affecting such companies——Abuses committed in the formation of such companies, due to speculation——Statistics of capital invested in joint-stock companies before and after the speculative crises of 1890——Revival of such companies, in a sense more consistent with the development of the country.
In any sketch of the commercial life of the Argentine, we must include the Bourse and the banks, which play an important part in the business life of the community, owing to the facilities which they afford to all kinds of commercial transactions.
To-day such transactions represent a considerable figure, and involve a movement of capital amounting to scores of millions. There is obviously need of an organised body designed to simplify this movement, and to place at the disposal of trade the means of effecting its exchanges with the least possible displacement of capital.
_Banks._——It was inevitable that in the Argentine the evolution of banking should be towards an international character, since the trade of the Republic is almost entirely with foreign countries. Moreover, this trade is very largely in the hands of foreigners: French, English, Germans, Italians, Spaniards, Belgians, or Americans from the States; which fact has resulted in the formation, in the city of Buenos Ayres, of various groups of banks, corresponding, in respect of their founders or their capital, to these various nationalities. Each of these establishments is in constant communication with the country of its origin, and seeks to gather round it clients of its own nationality.