I am translating an article appeared in La Nacion today, as it could be of interest of this forum. Needless to say, I think that the relationship that we had (and lost) with the United Kingdom brought us many benefits.
Here is the article:
Great Britain, a controversial partner
By Luis Alberto Romero
July 22, 2018
Denounced by some and claimed by others, the English intervention played a key role in the transformation that the country experienced at the end of the 19th century
"The English are all pirates." Although absurd, the phrase synthesizes a feeling and an idea of our past deeply rooted. It is believed that, in one way or another, Great Britain has always harmed us. The invasion of 1806, the appropriation of the Malvinas in 1833, the blockade of 1845, the interference in the Paraguayan War would have been the milestones of that design.
None of these episodes was as decisive as the British participation in the great transformation of Argentina in the late nineteenth century. Critics have pointed out the deformed nature of that growth and the enormous benefit obtained by Great Britain, which managed to maintain it after 1930, when the crisis ended prosperity. At that time, the idea of British "imperialism", popularized by historical revisionism, began to become popular.
Anti-British nationalism is at the core of a broad and diversified ideological tradition that reaches our days and that can associate components as disparate as Catholic traditionalism and modern populism. It is a question that is worth trying to unravel. That was the purpose of the conversation that, in the cycle of the Club of Progress, two qualified historians maintained: Roberto Cortés Conde and Eduardo Zimmermann.
Did Britain exploit the country in those decades of expansion? Did it hurt her in any way? Cortés Conde emphatically denies it. It was an agreement of mutual convenience, he says, in a global context that at that time rewarded specialization and comparative advantages, exploited by both parties "with skill and wisdom".
Europe demanded cereals and meat. The available land available and the immigrant labor that put it into production were two fundamental factors. Cortés Conde puts the accent on the third: the capital, nonexistent in the country and from British investments. The railroads allowed to bring, at low cost, the grains to the ports. The route - the much criticized "funnel" - was the only reasonably possible one. The necessary investment was very large, of slow maturation and of uncertain yield, which explains the additional advantages that were granted.
It is true that there was a lot of corruption and waste, especially on the part of investment banks, such as Baring. But nothing very different from the "robber barons" of the United States or the scam of the Company of the Panama Canal in France.
The results were spectacular. Argentina became one of the great agricultural exporters, and a new and thriving society was formed in the "pampa gringa" and in the cities, also stimulating the industry. It was a mutually convenient association: British investors won a lot, but the biggest benefit was for Argentines.
Despite these obvious achievements, already in the good times began to manifest criticism of the partnership with Britain. Zimmermann showed that there was no shortage of those who questioned its economic influence, and especially the cultural one. The newspaper La Nacion, in a liberal position, demanded in 1906 the nationalization of public service companies and the exclusion of foreign capital, to put an end to an "economic dependence that even internal affairs can not resolve for ourselves". José Luis Cantilo criticized the alleged cultural superiority of the "Anglo-Saxons". The Catholic Manuel Gálvez undertook it with the Protestant missionaries and proposed to expel them from the country, thus eradicating "cosmopolitanism".
Contradictions
In this traditionalist, Hispanicist and Catholic nationalism, Zimmermann finds a precocious reaction against the process of mobility of the alluvial society, the growing presence of immigrants in the thriving commercial activities and the postponement of the "old Argentines". The 1929 crisis brought new grounds for disappointment, and since then the whole experience of the association with England was considered a great failure.
In Argentina and British imperialism, a book of enormous influence published in 1934, the brothers Julio and Rodolfo Irazusta reproached the English not only their role in the economy but, above all, their claim to eliminate the "ancestral influences" Hispanic. But the main culprit was not them, but the "Argentine oligarchy", an elite that, blinded by cosmopolitanism, could not play its leading role. The great responsible for their loss were Rivadavia and especially Sarmiento, who was already the bete noire of Catholic hispanism.
A good example of servility before the English would have been given by Julio A. Roca (h), who led the mission to London and managed the Roca Runciman Treaty, qualified by another fertile feather, Arturo Jauretche, as the "legal status of the colonialism". The criticism of the Treaty, and subsequently the devastating balance Raul Scalabrini Ortiz made in 1940 on the British railways, were the pillars of the new idea of a British imperialism responsible for all Argentine ills, which others developed in an anti-imperialist and even Leninist key. Today it is installed in common sense. There is also the conviction that in 1948, by nationalizing the railways, Perón would have untied these ties, founding economic sovereignty.
For Cortés Conde, these interpretations, like other similar ones, are based on half-truths, misrepresentations and simplifications, and ignorance of the complexity of these issues.
Critics of the Roca Runciman treaty, which put the accent on the interests of the "vaccine oligarchy", ignore the main aspect of the problem. Since 1929, with the end of convertibility, it was impossible for British companies to send their profits in pounds to London. The "frozen pesos" were a problem for both companies and the country. In 1933, Roca (h) managed to get an English banking consortium to buy the debt in pesos and issue, under his responsibility, debt securities in pounds. Quid pro quo: in exchange for this, the British companies obtained tariff and exchange advantages. According to The Economist, placing debt in Argentine pesos in London was something "extraordinary". It would also be today.
Cortés Conde also corrects the current version on the nationalization of the railroads. From 1920, the railway business began its decline, due to the competition of routes and trucks. In the long term, it had not been a good business, and companies began to manage their sale to the State. Things were precipitated at the end of World War II, as Britain was indebted to its suppliers-the "frozen and broken pounds." It offered creditor countries to exchange their debt for assets, such as railroads, with varying success. Argentina, when Perón bought them, obtained the best possible result, which they celebrated with joy, "We made it!", Telegraphed the embassy to London.
Cortés Conde also corrects the current version on the nationalization of the railroads. From 1920, the railway business began its decline, due to the competition of routes and trucks. In the long term, it had not been a good business, and companies began to manage their sale to the State. Things were precipitated at the end of World War II, as Britain was indebted to its suppliers-the "frozen and broken pounds." It offered creditor countries to exchange their debt for assets, such as railroads, with varying success. Argentina, when Perón bought them, obtained the best possible result, which they celebrated with joy, "We made it!", Telegraphed the embassy to London.
So the reviled "Statute of colonialism" was perhaps a national success, and railway nationalization, a terrible business for the country. "Things are not always what they seem," concluded the moderator, Eduardo Lazzari, summarizing the purpose of the cycle "Controversial issues of Argentine history."
This article is based on the fourth meeting of the cycle of talks on controversial historical events organized by the Club del Progreso, with the author's coordination. The fifth, about the 1930s, will be held on the 31st of this month at 1 PM..
