THE REMARKABLE GROWTH OF ARGENTINA.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 139, 13 June 1911, Page 6

THE REMARKABLE GROWTH OF ARGENTINA.

, On the oocitsion. of the _7th annual] '"general meetiirg of shareholders in the j ' N.Z. and River Plate Land Mortgage Company, some very interesting facts about the prog-ess oft the Argentine were given by the chairman in the course; of his speech. He said f The progress that Jias been made in the Argentine is a remarkable phenomenon, and I have here son* very interesting figures which will iliuearate" it. Twenty years ago the area of lartd under cultivation in the Argentine Republic was about, six million acres; now id is over 40 million acres; and 1 may romind you that this is only about ten million acres less than the total area of Great Britain. The total mileage <>f the Argentine railways in 1890 was SSMO miies. sund in 190!» it was about 15,80*0 miles, an increase, of 10,000 miles. la 1890 the railway -mileage of the United Kingdom was about 20,080, and I believe now it is about _..,_SO, an increase, of,; say, 3000 miles. The total export of '■ wheat from the Argentine in 1891 was about 395,000 tons; in 1909 it was 2.514,I 000, or over six times as much, ln fact. I the 190.-9 wheat crop export from Argentitia was greater than that from the I United States or Russia, and more than from Canada and Australasia combined. TV* export, of mai_e has risen from about .6,000 tons in 1891 to over -2.273,000 tons in'rO&S, or more than 34 times what it was, and the export of the 190S-9 maize crop \Vas greater than the export from ' all the 3-est of the world put together. 1 The e.v«>t-rt of linseed has grown from I about I_',~'oo tons in 1891 to over 857,000 tons in .NSO9, and in this staple Argentina exposed more than twice as much as the rest of the world for the 1908-9 crop. I thit'k you will agree with mc that these are very striking figures, and that nobody who considers them care- '- fully and readr- attentively the very able speeches of sonic of the chairmen of the ■rreat railway lines in the Argentine can fail to be "most profoundly impressed both with what has been done heretorfore, and with \ttiat may be done hereafter.