+------------------------------+----------------------------+---------+ | | 1837. | | | +---------+------------------+---------+ | |Quantity.| Price. Value. | | +---------+------------------+---------+ | | | Dollars. | Dollars | | | | | | |Spanish Dollars | 258,748 | -- | 258,743 | |Marks of Silver | 4,881 |at 8 | 39,048 | |Gold (ounces) | 21,999 | 17 | 373,983 | |Gold (uncoined) | 362 | -- | 6,154 | |Copper (quintals of 100 lbs.) | -- | -- | -- | |Ox-hides | 823,635 | 4 |3,294,540| |Horse-hides | 25,367 | 1-1/2 | 38,046| |Jerk Beef (quintals) | 178,877 | 2-1/2 | 446,192| |Horns | 434,456 | 60 | 26,070| |Horsehair (arobes of 25 lbs.) | 70,372 | 3 | 211,116| |Sheeps' wool (arobes) | 164,706 | 2 | 329,412| |Chinchilla skins (dozens) | 3,317 | 4 | 13,268| |Nutria skins (dozens) | 51,853 | 2-1/2 | 129,632| |Tallow (arobes) | 100,249 | 1-1/2 | 150,373| |Bark (lbs.) | -- | -- | --| |Cotton (arobes) | 160 | 3 | 480| |Sheep-skins (dozens) | 56,188 | 2-1/2 | 140,470| |Flour (fanegas) | 14,069 | 4 | 56,268| |Corn (do.) | 4,150 | 3-1/2 | 14,525| |Sundry Minor Articles | -- | -- | 108,818| |------------------------------+---------+------------------+---------+ |Totals | Precious Metals 677,928}|5,637,138| | | Native Produce 4,959,210}| | +-----------------------------------------------------------+---------+
The annual account of the imports and exports, continuing to take the year 1822 as an example, may perhaps be generally stated as follows:
The imports for that year, as stated at page 337 (less those re-exported), were valued at 9,944,057
From the gross value of the imports about 30 per cent. must be deducted for duties, landing charges, commission, guarantee of debts, and warehouse rent, say 2,983,217 --------- 6,960,840
The exports are estimated at 5,000,000 Add for short manifests 1,000,000 For charges, 10 per cent. 600,000 ---------- 6,600,000 --------- 360,840
This difference, which upon the whole was of little importance, was at once accounted for by the investments of foreign capital in the purchase of every kind of property in the country previously to the war with Brazil.
Although foreigners, as has been already observed, were heavy sufferers by the events of that war, the country was benefited in a way which could hardly have been foreseen. In the impossibility of making returns to Europe during the continuance of the blockade, the greater part of the large amount of foreign property locked up in it was laid out in cattle-farms, agricultural establishments, saladeros (where the _jerk_ beef is made), houses, and a variety of speculations, the general tendency of which was greatly to improve the real resources of the country. Thus, although upon the whole there was afterwards apparently a falling off in the foreign trade of the port of Buenos Ayres compared with what it was before the war, there was in reality an increase in the quantities of the staple commodities of the country brought to market.