SLUMP IN ARGENTINE.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXXIX, Issue 6335, 1 May 1923, Page 3

SLUMP IN ARGENTINE.

CATTLE GO A-BEGGING,

A great crisis has fallen upon the

cattle raising industry of this Republic, and the “estancieros,” or

pastoralists, ordinarily the riches

and most influential group of men in

Argentina, are suffering severely. Cattle values have fallen to the lowest figure in the history of the industry, while the herds of prime stock, bred up and improved from the finest stud animals exported from England and Scotland, have increased phenomenally. Steers are being sold to-day at onethird of the price they were bringing in 1920, and cows and calves can hardly be sold at all. Quite recently one lot of cows was sold at 6s each, and at a public sale the auctioneer saw the futility of offering the animals under the usual system of so much per head, and called for a bid on the mob as it stood. The first offer he received w r as less than £2! At such prices it is impossible for the cattle raiser to make a profit. He has his idea of what he should get, and seeing no prospect of getting it he is desperate. In answer to his loud protests he has been told that the inexorable 'law of supply and demand is operating; that there are too many cattle; and the orders from Europe for Argentine prime beef do not warrant better prices than the packers are willing to pay. Fifty years or more ago, when Argentina could not sell all the beef she produced, when the herds grew to tremendous proportions and the country was in danger of: being eaten out, cattle were ruthlessly slaughtered to adjust one economic condition to another. The beasts were killed for their hides. That is what is going to happen, and is happening now, in Argentina. A cattleman recently stated that neither he nor any of his fellows who slaughter their stock and cease breeding till the demand overtook the supply. "On the estancia next to mine,” he said, “the major domo has instructions to kill off, and each morning he rides out and shoots every calf that has been born overnight. That’s the way to meet the situation.”