Argentina has Per(it)onitis
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ONE of the best ways of studying Argentina is to ' visit Buenos Aires and stay there for some time, . if only to watch the traffic. , Traffic conditions in the capital symbolize fairly adequately the kind of situation to which General Peron and his henchmen have brought the once-prosperous Argentine Republic.
The confusion in the city's streets is such as would reduce the wildest taximan in Paris to petrified silence and horror. Every driver—and that means drivers of buses, goods vehicles and private cars—puts his hand upon the horn and keeps it there. Street-car drivers have achieved a bell-jangling technique that would surely be the envy of the most demoniac street-car conductor in all the United States of America. The patching-up of roads continues through all seasons in an unbelievably haphazard manner, and little attempt is made by contractors to mark piles of stones, machinery and all the other impedimenta associated with road repairs, so that it is easy for even a careful driver, if, in fact, one exists in Buenos Aires, to pile his vehicle tip before he knows where he is.
Traffic Lights a Challenge There is not an automatic traffic light in the whole of this city of 3,000,000 souls. Some time ago the authorities experimented with robot lights, but were compelled to abandon the attempt because the caballeros. saw them as a challenge, rather than a warning. The smashes that occurred, as a consequence, at the innumerable intersections, appalled everybody.,
The screaming chaos of hurtling vehicles, both in the capital and along the main thoroughfares radiating from it, has made sufficient impression upon the authorities to cause a special commission to be appointed for the study of traffic congestion. They have sought to solve the problem with typically South American dash and . abandon. Some idea of their approach to it can be found in the spectacular project on the road to the favourite holiday resort, Mar del Plata. The plan was that a low-flying aircraft would patrol the whole stretch of this highway (Argentina's Brighton road) for something
like 400 kilos. Perched thus above the speeding vehicles, the traffic controller—or so the theory ran— would, through high-magnification binoculars, identify offenders by tha.eit registration plates, detect causes of traffic jams, and so on, and transmit by wireless all the details, with appropriate instructions, to the nearest police station. No lucid explanation of how the system would really work has yet been adventured, but what traffic lights and earth-bound controllers failed to do, namely, tame an Argentine driver whose blood is up, a remote "traffic cop" flying across the sky is unlikely to succeed in doing.
No Road Sense
Part of the trouble is that the authorities have never issued any kind of highway code and nobody has attempted to inculcate road sense. Buenos Aires has at last, however, decided to issue a document called " Codigo de Transito," which will be a sort of recapitulation of the many municipal and police edicts relating to the circulation of persons and vehicles. The code has not yet been published and precedents suggest that it is never likely to be enforced. Somebody is going to have a. tough up-hill job to educate the Argentine population in road sense. In that country one's prestige,' at least as far as driving is concerned, depends largely upon the speed and noise of one's passage through the streets or along the highways.
Argentina's economic ptoblem has a close likeness to the traffic situation. Argentine economy is by no means so flourishing as General Peron would like the world to believe. First, the cost of livin?, is fantastically high—higher, perhaps, than in any other country in the world. Secondly, Argentine trade with her most important customer, the United Kingdom, and her principal supplier, the U S.A., is catastrophically out of balance.
According to official figures —which arg notoriously misleading, and nowhere more so than in South America—the cost of living has risen to between 100 per cent. and 190 per cent, over the 1939 level. In fact, the cost of living is probably about five times more than it was in 1939. Some indication of the rate at which inflation has taken place is seen in statistics issued by the Central Bank. According to these, the note circulation was more than doubled between December, 1945, and October, 1948, whilst bank loans increased some 2i times between the end of 1946 and the middle of 1948.
Nor is Argentina's external trade position any more encouraging. Of her exports in 1947. 30 per cent. went to the United Kingdom and 10 per cent. to the U.S.A. ln the same year, 45 per cent, of her imports came from the U.S.A. and 8 per cent, from the United Kingdom, so that the United Kingdom has a substantial credit balance with her, but with her largest supplier, the U.S.A., she has a large debit balance and is, there
fore, very short of dollars. Obviously, the only way in which our account with Argentina can be balanced is to increase DUI' exports Hitherto, Argentina has, because of the economic policies of Senor Peron, tried to limit her imports from all sources. One of the principal avowed aims of the regime is to make Argentina selfsufficient. In October, 1946, a "five-year plan" (how ominous and persistent that phrase is in modern history!) was presented to the Argentine parliament. The chief aim is to achieve the highest possible degree of industrialization in the shortest possible time—it is a vast programme of public works and services designed to promote home manufacturing industries.
But self-sufficiency programmes are . difficult to carry out in the modern world, 51 which, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, is more closely knit than ever before. Argentina produces a great deal of meat in addition to other products that are urgently needed all over the world; and these she has to sell, or expire. So, after prolonged and difficult negotiations, a trade agreement was concluded between the United Kingdom and Argentina in June, and this came into force on July 1.
Under its terms, trade is expected to amount to about £125,000,000 sterling each way in the first year. The Stationery Office has published a White Paper setting out the terms of the agreement, and the schedule of goods for which each Government will grant facilities includes £24,900,000 for transport equipment and material. Of this amount, 14,000,000 is earmarked for lorries, buses and motor vehicles of all kinds, mainly oil-enginecl and electric, and spare parts. This amount is sub-divided into £3,200,000 for vehicles and f_800,000 for spares.
This means that the Argentine .Government has guaranteed to furnish would-be exporters and importers with all the necessary facilities, but, of course, it does not guarantee that these items will necessarily be sold. Trade under the agreement is to be .conducted through the normal channels. Manufacturers on this side of the Atlantic, therefore, will have to use all the sales-promotion methods, appropriate to the Argentine, which they have learnt through the years. They need no reminding that to sell in Argentina it is necessary to paint with a broad brush. The South American peoples are accustomed to United States methods and their ear is attuned to a more strident note than we find attractive in this country.
The ambitions of the regime have not stopped short of production of motor vehicles. Ernesto Maserati, creator of the racing car, has been in Argentina and appears to have said a lot about the setting up of a motor industry there. According to him, it need not be long before an initial production of 10,000 commercial vehicles a year is well under way.
The plan is, as yet, no more than a plan, for in Argentina, as in other parts of the world, the planners. however well versed they may be in economic theory, often overlook the human factor. There is widespread distrust among Argentine purchasers of the words " Industria Argentina," a stamp which appears all over the place and, up to the present, has seldom proved to be a reliable guarantee of quality. Despite all the propaganda put out by the Argentine Government, it is difficult to see how the long-standing and well-founded respect for vehicles imported from America and Great Britain will be destroyed.
It is most unlikely that motor-vehicle production in the Argentine will be competitive with either British or American industry. The first attempt to produce a car in Argentina was made by Senor Horacio Anasgasti and was completely unsuccessful. A slightly more eneourag e2 ing start was made by Hispano-Argentine, which made heavy lorries, but this undertaking ultimately failed because of disproportionately high costs.
It is true that most imported vehicles cost approximately double the figure at which they are sold in their, country of origin, so that there is a substantial margin in which Argentine production costs could be higher than ours; but, on the other hand, there are practically no ancillary industries and little engineering skill—or genuine appetite to attain it—in Argentina.
It must be confessed that, in general, American pro ducts are preferred to British: Camp" mechanics understand Fords, Chevrolets, and the like, down to the last nut and bolt. It is this unskilled, rule-of-thumb farm-hand who must be considered in any market research for motor vehicles. It may be that many users would prefer British vehicles for some reasons; but the U.S. product is bought because spares are so readily obtainable and the farm mechanic knows American machines inside out.
British vehicles have, however, one overwhelrnin.g advantage; they are far more economical in fuel. This is a point of great interest to the Argentine. What the Argentin° is looking for are low petrol consumption, simple and robust design—especially of the engine— adequate ground clearance, reliability under all conditions of heat, cold, rust, mud, water and so on, and, withal, a smart appearance and tough finish inside and out. Above all, spares must be available and mechanics trained to keep the vehicle on the road.
Italy is likely to prove a keen competitor in the future. Increasing numbers of Italian buses and lorries are running about Argentine roads, and since the war over 107 foreign-owned factories have been set up, most of them Italian. Isotta-Fraschini, Fiat and Maserati are all keeping a keen eye on possibilities of local production.
There is a great need for new roads throughout the Argentine. The central Government, under the five-year plan, co-ordinates all road-building projects and provides funds for them. Of course, there are some good roads, and the main cities are linked by highways with concrete surfaces; but by far the greater number, and especially those over which agricultural produce is carried to the railway stations from the ranches, is tinsurfaced and, for the most part, impassable in wet weather.
According to a report from the Administration of National Road Con-frnuqications, during. May and June, 1948, works to a total of 29,000,000 pesos were
commenced, an increase of 13,000,000 pesos over the expenditure in the corresponding months Of the previous year. Among the major contracts were the laying of bitumen on 47 kiloms. of the Mendoza-San Juan road between the former city boundary and the inter-provincial boundary, and, in the province of Santiago del Estero, between the provincial capital and the town of Abrita. Work has been started on paving a stretch of the new road from Buenos Aires to Ezeiza.
Of the 29,000,000 pesos scheduled, however, less than 3,000,000 was allocated to maintenance, for systematic maintenance is something that the Argentino simply cannot be bothered with. He builds a road and leaves it largely to its fate. The surfaces of country roads • are nearly all " washboarded " and rutted, embankments have broken down, and no attempt has been made to repair them, and roads recently built at great expense are now beginning to fall into disrepair.
The Government, through the National Secretariat of Transport—an organization ranking as a Ministry--has absorbed all existing transport. It co-ordinates the control of motor, air, ocean and river transport of a commercial nature and all other forms of transport within the national jurisdiction. The Secretariat, with the M iniEry of Public Works, is also co-ordinating studies connected with highways and transport generally.
Under the new constitution, all public transport will be Argentine-owned, and it is highly probable that there will soon be outright. State ownership of all transport. Whatever the future may be, the Government has a strangle-hold, on road transport, which it has always taxed to the utmost capacity. Freight charges are high, railway charges are rising almost daily, and healthy competition between road and rail is virtually non-existent.
Yet too black a forecast of future possibilities in the Argentine market would be misleading. Whatever the results of the current negotiations between our two countries, their economies are tc a large extent complementary; trade between them will rapidly gain momentum when the hard -light of realism shines once again over the geometrical calles and avenidas of Buenos Aires.