WHERE IMMIGRANTS ARE WELCOMED

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 224, 9 June 1923, Page 3

WHERE IMMIGRANTS ARE WELCOMED

CONSTANT STREAM TO ARGENTINE GOVERNMENT’S “PATERNAL CARE” The General Board of Agriculture of the Argentine has recently issued in English a highly informative pamphlet on all matters concerning that country, copies of which recently reached the Consul-G-eneral here, Signor Humberto Bidone. The pamphlet shows how the Argentine Government goes out of its way to seek and welcome immigrants. The following statements are made in :he pamphlet:—“All the Argentine laws, since the foundation of its constitution, have favoured and favour the imminent, by which is ■n-vniit every foreign i farmer, labourer, artisan, mani.%-turei or professor of less thai GO years ci age, that arrives in the Republic with a second or third class passage, and who, giving proof of his gool conduct, wishes to establish nnnseli in the country. “On his arrival in the Argentine the immigrant is disembarked and gratuitously lodged during five days at the Government’s expense in the 7 Immigrants’ Hotel, a model establishment, which can in its vast bedrooms, dining rooms, and saloons lodge as many as 4000 persons a day. His baggage, tools, an] furniture ar© introduced free of Custom duties. During his stay in tho hotel the immigrant can change his money without cost, in the branch of the National Bank; is ‘instructed in his own language by lectures with kinematograph about the agricultural and industrial conditions of the various regions of the country; he is given work and is transported with his family and baggage, by rail or steamer, gratis, to the point in the Republic where he wishes to fix his residence; if he is taken ill during his stay in the Immigrants’ Hotel tho cost of board, lodging, and cure, whilst the illness lasts, are also at the State’s expense.

“With thpso facilities for entering tlic country, and with the almost paternal care with which the immigrant is attended to, it is easily explained how since the year 1857, in which the streams of immigrants commenced to come, nearly five million have arrived in the Argentine, of whom a part returned to their native countries, there remaining a balance consisting of 2,400.000 foreigners who actually reside in the Argentine, contributing with their work to obtain their own prosperity, and that of the country that generously shelters them. “The figures registered of the quantity of immigrants that arrive yearly in the country have suffered, naturally, fluctuations and oscillations according to the conditions of the natal country and of the Argentine, but they have always kept high, especially in the last few years before the European conflagration, succeeding in showing in 1913 as many as 364,000 immigrants. During the last few years the immigration indicates a new period towards its growing. During 1921 140,000 immigrants entered the Argentne territory. . “The participation held’by foreigners in the vast field of work and in all the enterprises of the Argentine, are demonstrated by the figures .... and which indicate that of those who dedicate themselves to agriculture 50 per cent, are foreigners; 65 per cent, of the capital invested in industries belongs to the same, and 72 per cent, of the commercial properties in the Argentine correspond to them.”