When to this low rate at which productive labour may be obtained, we add the existence, now indisputably established, of an uninterrupted navigation the whole way from Oran to the Paranã, and thence to Buenos Ayres, it is impossible not to be struck with the very great natural advantages possessed by this province, and with the very small degree of energy apparently requisite on the part of the natives to turn them to the fullest account. It is their own fault alone if the sugars and tobacco, the cotton, the indigo, and cochineal of Oran, do not vie with those of Brazil and Columbia in the markets of Europe. Let the people of these countries open their eyes to the importance of their own resources, and let them not imagine that they themselves are incapable of calling them into action:--unfortunately, such a feeling is one of those curses to the country engendered by the old colonial system of Spain, and which has the effect, to a lamentable extent, of counteracting that spirit of self-confidence and exertion which, on every account, is called for on the part of the inhabitants of these countries under their new political condition. It is this feeling which has led them to turn their eyes to the formation of companies in Europe as the best mode of bringing their fertile lands into notice and cultivation,--an erroneous notion which cannot too soon be set right. I do not say that in the temperate climate of Buenos Ayres European labourers may not be employed to advantage; but when it becomes a question of sending them into the tropical regions in the heart of the continent, whether as agricultural labourers or miners, I am satisfied that the experiment would only end in utter disappointment to all parties. In the first place, it should be borne in mind that, to ensure in Europe any sale for the productions of so remote a country, the cost of their cultivation must be extremely low, as it appears to be at present; but what labourer from Europe would be satisfied with anything like even double the ordinary remuneration for daily labour in that part of the world? Supposing him, however, to be conveyed thither, and to be contented, for a time, with the abundance of the necessaries of life around him, what does he know of the culture of tropical productions, the chances being that he never saw a sugar-cane or a cotton plant in the whole course of his life? But, what is of more consequence, how long will his physical powers last in a climate, the heat of which will be almost insufferable to him, and in which the very indulgence of his own ordinary habits will soon undermine his constitution and destroy all his energies? Of the hundreds of Beresford's and Whitelock's men, who remained in the country after the evacuation of Buenos Ayres by the British forces, how very few were afterwards to be met with who were not sunk to the lowest scale of misery and moral degradation!
Theatre Brief
Buenos Ayres and the Provinces of the Rio de La Plata — Part 168
2026-11-15 05:16:22 · Cedar Herald Index
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