The Anglo-argentine Connection, 1900-1939

Roger Gravil

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780367290108
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000314618
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

At the opening of the twentieth century, Britain's influence in Argentina was at its peak and resembled, in certain ways, its position in countries such as Australia and Canada. Yet, in the following generation, British preeminence was persistently threatened, and Argentina's prospects plunged into a seemingly irreversible decline. Why did the Anglo-Argentine connection, which appeared so mutually beneficial in 1900, become strained to the breaking point by 1939? This book shows that Britain's efforts in Argentina were usually more pathetic than imperialistic, but that in periods of difficulty (1914 to 1918, and in the 1930s), British pressure unwittingly helped into power a political party that brought destruction, not merely to British interests, but also to the Argentine Republic's future promise.

1
The Anglo-Argentine Connection in 1900

The concept of the Anglo-Argentine Connection implies that a special relationship existed between Britain and Argentina. It arose from the conviction that Britain's relations with Argentina were different than those with most other countries. The difference was sometimes held to lie in sentiment—a special concern in Britain dating back to the beginnings of Argentine nationhood, and a strong Anglophile feeling in Argentina based on respect for British traditions, institutions, and even ethics. Anglo-United States relations are often held to have possessed a special character also. Here, British colonial rule is sometimes said to have been imbued with an "imperial idea." The sentimental overtones of the Anglo-Argentine Connection were more often compared with the latter rather than the former.

As with other special relationships, scepticism has been expressed about the sincerity of the sentiment. Indeed, the concept of the Anglo-Argentine Connection can be viewed as the manipulation of sentiment to veil the inequalities in economic exchange between industrial Britain and primary-producing Argentina. A common view in the republic is that the current problems of the country are the legacy of the Anglo-Argentine Connection. While Argentina is presented as a victim of British exploitation, British historians have habitually passed over the works of Argentine nationalism in silence, or dismissed them with Oxbridge affectations of scholarly disdain, or confined their responses to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries terminating their studies, at the latest, in 1930. Could this be because the thesis of nonintervention by Britain is harder to sustain for more recent times? The intention here, at any rate, is to view Argentine work seriously and to adopt a different approach to a shorter and more recent period than is usually used for this debate.

An important difference between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries is that the latter presented Britain with two major occasions when substantial fortification of her declining position in the Argentine trade seemed feasible. In the nineteenth century, the practice of free trade and laissez-faire policies placed severe limits on Britain's ability to gain privileges in Argentina not obtainable by competitors. In the twentieth century, however, the suspension of these policies during the war of 1914-1918 and their abandonment in the world crisis of the 1930s gave Britain two major opportunities, which were seized, to strengthen her position through the pursuit of bilateral and even unilateral concessions from Argentina. In the present state of scholarship it cannot be regarded as axiomatic that the normal operation of the Anglo-Argentine Connection placed the republic in a worse position than other suppliers of temperate products. After all, Britain did not normally reserve exploitation exclusively for the River Plate. But abnormality in the Anglo-Argentine Connection, occurring in a period of great British concern about the erosion of her position, did give rise to uniquely unfavorable treatment of Argentina. On the first occasion in the twentieth century when this happened, during the war of 1914 1918, British policy, though basically opportunistic, could claim some justification in war conditions. But the second, during the world crisis of the 1930s, provoked a degree of resentment in the republic which led directly to the dissolution of the Anglo-Argentine Connection.

The origins of the Anglo-Argentine Connection may be traced from British penetration of the South Atlantic in the seventeenth century to the intimate association between London and Buenos Aires in the 1820s. But the restricted market in Britain for Argentine products and the consequent inability of the republic to maintain service payments on foreign capital deferred the substantial development of the Anglo-Argentine Connection until the last quarter of the nineteenth century. By that time, Britain needed temperate imports and to supply them Argentina needed external capital investment. The completion of arrangements in 1856 to satisfy the creditors of the defaulted Baring loan of 1824 had not stimulated sustained investment interest in Argentina despite great expectations. The next loan was not transacted until 1865, and that was used to finance the Paraguayan War rather than for development purposes. In 1865 British capital in Argentina totalled a mere £5,375,000; by 1875 it had reached £23,059,000; by 1885, £45,602,000; and by 1890, £174,768,722.¹ The sectoral distribution of this investment is shown in Table 1.1.²

How did this impressive growth of British investment affect the infrastructural development of Argentina? A basic requirement for the growth of the export economy was the improvement of port amenities. One of Argentina's commercial attractions was its excellent Atlantic situation, coupled with good natural internal communications.

TABLE 1.1 British investment in Argentina at the end of 1890

Investment	Pounds	Percent
Banks	9,575,000	5.40
National government loans	25,500,000	14.60
Provincial and municipal government loans	27,605,000	15.70
Cédulas	24,045,447	14.30
Railways	67,574,140	38.80
Urban utilities and public services	11,484,135	6.60
Land companies	5,265,000	3.00
Processing and warehousing	1,595,000	0.80
Brewing and sugar refining	1,025,000	0.58
River transport	1,100,000	0.60
TOTAL	174,768,722

Source: H. S. Ferns, "The Development of British Enterprise in Argentina 1806-1895," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge, 1950, 182.

The Plate, Paraguay, Paraná, and Uruguay formed a river network which compared favorably with those elsewhere in Latin America and by the end of the nineteenth century the republic had developed twenty foreign ports—thirteen on the Paraná, two on the Uruguay, two on the Plate, and three on the Atlantic. In addition, there were fifty-five river ports—six on the Paraná, eleven on the Uruguay, and four on the Plate. Coastal navigation was handled by ten ports situated mainly in southern Patagonia.³ The impression of decentralization and commercial diffusion is, however, quite spurious; for, the river system converged in a great estuary where the city of Buenos Aires developed, so that long before construction of the railway network, the handling of foreign trade tended to concentrate there. This concentration was entirely attributable to the city's magnificent trading site, for actual harbor conditions were atrocious. As a British official observed:

. . . its people are called porteños, but as a port I am sure that the most patriotic porteño will excuse my saying that it is one of the most detestable in the world. It is impossible to exaggerate the inconvenience and difficulty of transit between the shipping and the shore, its expense as regards merchandise, and in rough weather, extreme danger to passengers. Large vessels such as the transatlantic steamers are obliged to lie twelve miles from the mole and load and unload by means of lighters.⁴

Succeeding authorities in the River Plate adopted two broad approaches to this problem, the first being efforts to find a new port location. From the foundation of Montevideo in 1726, this port, with its deeper water and better natural conditions, absorbed a growing proportion of the navigation entering the river. Imperial legislation accentuated this process by making Montevideo the delivery point for both the colonial mail service and the slave trade.⁵ Though Buenos Aires was designated an international port under the comercio libre provisions, oceanic vessels often discharged at Montevideo and cargoes were reshipped across the river. Porteño resentment of this practice accounted for the development of Ensenada—the only natural harbor on the northern coast of Buenos Aires province—the illegality being concealed behind pretences that the new port works merely extended the officially approved installations at Buenos Aires and were, in any case, primarily military.⁶ The port seemed destined to flourish and the new town of Señora de las Mercedes was planned to house the growing mercantile community. This promising alternative lapsed, however, in the first years of the nineteenth century when a new viceroy, transferred from Montevideo where his sympathies lay, suspended a project so detrimental to the banda oriental.⁷ Nevertheless, sufficient basis had been laid for a revival of the scheme in the 1860s by William Wheelwright, who proposed to make Ensenada the maritime port of Buenos Aires province, with good rail links with the Federal Capital.⁸

In the early decades of independence, however, porteño attitudes changed. With the creation of Uruguay in 1828 as a buffer state between Argentina and Brazil, Montevideo became the capital of a foreign country and commercial interests on the west bank were under less pressure to uproot and relocate their port. Though new schemes in the estuary were still promoted, they now lacked wholehearted porteño support and met with only partial success. Rail transport to Ensenada was provided, but was not complemented by adequate harbor works.⁹ Dardo Rocha's new city of La Plata was brought into existence but never became the national port. Indeed, it was regarded more as a white elephant. In the 1890s, reportedly "the new city of La Plata has no business and very little raison d'être." The new approach was increasingly to foster the concentration of foreign trade in Buenos Aires,¹⁰ partly for the important political consideration that in controlling customs receipts the port commanded a major source of national revenue. As foreign capital became more readily available, this policy was greatly facilitated by extensive port improvement schemes. A great deal of the investment activity of the ochenta was concentrated in these projects which came to fruition with the opening of the Madero docks in 1897, finally allowing oceanic shipping to reach the quayside.¹¹ With the additional facilities created at Puerto Nuevo after 1910, the physical drawbacks of Buenos Aires as a port of world standing were substantially overcome.

Since the rise of the port of Buenos Aires seemed...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Preface
• 1 The Anglo-Argentine Connection in 1900
• 2 The Grain Trade, 1900-1913
• 3 The Meat Trade, 1900-1913
• 4 British Export Trade, 1900-1913
• 5 The War of 1914-1918
• 6 Reinforcement Attempted: The 1920s
• 7 Reinforcement Accomplished: The 1930s
• 8 The Peronist Interpretation
• Statistical Appendix
• Bibliography
• Index
• List of Dellplain Latin American Studies