Observations on the Present State of the Affairs of the River Plate. Baines Thomas
and in 1827, to £150,000, and even that small remnant of trade was carried on by vessels which broke the blockade. At a subsequent period, namely, in the years 1838-9, and 40, there was again a blockade in the River Plate, established by France, a power much more capable of making a blockade respected than Brazil, but as the east bank of the river was no longer under the control of Buenos Ayres, which was the power against whom the blockade was directed, the evils resulting from it were comparatively small. Foreign ships were still able to proceed to Monte Video, (thanks to the independence of Uruguay), and thus, although one line of intercourse with the interior was cut off by the blockade of the port of Buenos Ayres, the other up the river Uruguay was kept open. In consequence of this, the evils of the blockade were, in a great measure, confined to the city of Buenos Ayres and its immediate neighbourhood, for the eastern bank of the river flourished more than ever, the communication with the interior was never closed, and the commerce of the nations trading with those countries continued to increase. When it is considered (and it ought never to be lost sight of,) that the commerce of foreign nations with the whole of the central regions of South America depends entirely on the keeping open one or other of these lines of communication, it will be seen that it is a matter, not merely of national but of universal importance, though in an especial manner to England, to maintain the entire independence of Monte Video of Buenos Ayres, so as to diminish as much as possible the danger of both being closed at the same time and by the same political events. We say the entire independence of Monte Video, for though the nominal independence of the country might be preserved, even if the Buenos Ayrean army, under General Oribe, should get possession of the city of Monte Video, that officer would be compelled to lean on General Rosas for support to protect him against the majority of his fellow countrymen, who are now in arms against him quite as much as the chiefs of the Banda Oriental were in 1826, 7, and 8, compelled to lean on Buenos Ayres for protection against the arms of Brazil; and to follow the fortunes of Buenos Ayres in any war in which General Rosas might involve himself, either with Brazil or any of the nations of Europe. This would again be fatal to the trade of the River Plate.
It is not generally known, although it is very important that it should be, that this trade amounted in 1842, including both imports and exports, to upwards of Three Millions sterling, at the port of Monte Video alone. It is still, however, in its infancy, and requires nothing but a few years of peace, with the introduction of steam navigation on the Parana, the Uruguay, and their tributaries,1 to give it an extension which will render it of vital importance to the merchants and manufacturers of England. The Parana and the Paraguay, together, are known to be navigable to Assumption, which is fifteen hundred miles above Buenos Ayres, to vessels drawing nine feet water, and there is every reason to believe that both those rivers might be navigated a thousand miles higher by iron steamers, such as those recently built at Birkenhead, by order of the East India Company, for the navigation of the Indus and the Sutlej, the former of which, when carrying guns and troops, draw only four feet water, the latter of which, when loaded in the same manner, not more than two and a half. The Uruguay is equally navigable for several hundred miles to the Salto Chico, (the little leap), and if a short canal was cut, to turn that rapid and the much more formidable one of the Salto Grande,2 it would be navigable for many hundred miles above the Falls. Several of the tributaries of these gigantic streams are larger than the Rhine, the Elbe, or the Tagus, and great numbers of them than the Thames or the Mersey, and the whole of this vast net-work of waters is connected with the still more stupendous river of the Amazons, by a short portage to the Madeira, one of the principal tributaries of that king of rivers. The natural products which these unrivalled lines of river communication might be made the means of bringing to the ports on the Rivers Plate and Amazons are varied and inexhaustible. In addition to the large supplies of hides, wool, tallow, and provisions, which these countries now furnish, Paraguay and Corrientes are capable of supplying the finest timber for ship-building purposes, sugar the growth of free labour, the best kinds of tobacco, cotton-wool, dyewoods, drugs, the tea of Paraguay, and the precious metals from Bolivia and the back provinces of Brazil. It is now only twenty or thirty years since steam navigation was introduced on the Mississippi, and the consequence of its introduction has been an extension of cultivation and population such as the world never before saw. The natural resources of the great valleys of the Parana, Paraguay, and Uruguay, merely require to be developed by the same means to make Monte Video and Buenos Ayres as flourishing as New Orleans, and to make the commerce of the River Plate rival that of the Mississippi. It is perhaps vain to hope that anything will induce the present Governor of Buenos Ayres to abandon the suicidal policy which is at once impeding the intercourse with the interior, and depriving that city of the principal benefits of its unrivalled position, but this only renders it the more necessary to keep open the only other course, namely, that through the Uruguay, by which the resources of these vast countries can be brought into activity.
For another of the great advantages which has resulted from the independence of Monte Video, has been the opening of a new channel for the commercial intercourse between Europe and the central states of South America, in peace as well as in war; and this channel the Monte Videan Government has laboured to improve and keep open, as zealously and as successfully as the Buenos Ayrean Government has laboured to narrow and impede the old ones. The Buenos Ayrean Government has been warned repeatedly by its warmest friends of the consequences which would result from its illiberal commercial policy; but they might just as well have reasoned with the winds; for, the only effect of the contrast between the rapidly increasing prosperity of Monte Video and the declining state of Buenos Ayres, has been to excite the most deadly hatred and jealousy towards Monte Video on the part of the Buenos Ayrean Government, and a settled determination to drag down that rapidly improving city to its own level. The following sketch of the commercial policy of the two countries will show what have been the principal causes of the prosperity of Monte Video, and what of the decline of Buenos Ayres; and also how strong a claim the policy of the former gives it on the sympathy and support of this country.
A large portion of the revenue, both of Monte Video and of Province of Buenos Ayres, is raised by taxes on the importation of foreign goods, and the rate of duties is not excessive in either case. It is not on this account that any one complains of the Buenos Ayrean Government, but because it confines foreign commerce to the single port of Buenos Ayres, and excludes both foreigners and foreign vessels from the other ports of the Confederation, as strictly as the Chinese formerly excluded them from every port except Canton. This it is able to effect by its command over the entrance to the river Parana, the direct route to Entre Rios, Corrientes, and the other provinces of the Confederation. Whilst the provincial Government of Buenos Ayres thus excludes all foreign vessels from the Parana, and as far as its control extends from the Uruguay, it claims the right to expend the whole of the customs' revenue raised at Buenos Ayres. The upper provinces very naturally consider this unjust, and insist on having either a share of the revenue collected at Buenos Ayres (somewhat on the principle adopted amongst the states of the German Zollverein), or on having a general Congress of all the provinces of the Confederation to decide how the money shall be distributed. This General Rosas and his adherents refuse, and this refusal, coupled with the equally positive refusal of the same parties to allow foreign vessels to ascend the river, is one principal cause of the frequent wars between the states of the Argentine Confederation on the banks of the river and the Government of Buenos Ayres, one of which is now raging between it and Corrientes. In this way the commerce with the interior is continually interrupted. The policy of the Monte Videan Government is in every respect the reverse of this, for it not only throws open the ports of Monte Video, Maldonado, and Colonia, on the River Plate, but those of Soriano and Paysandú, on the Uruguay, the Yaguaron, on the Laguna Merin, and the dry port of Taquarembó on the Brazilian frontier to all the world, and thus gives every part of the republic all the advantages of foreign commerce.
There is a still greater difference, if it is possible, in the policy adopted by the two governments with regard to the transit trade. At Monte Video goods may be landed without the payment of any duty, may be there deposited in the Custom-house stores for any length of time, on the payment of a smaller warehouse rent than is usually paid in Liverpool, and may be sent to any of the independent countries in the interior, or re-shipped to foreign parts, without the payment of a dollar. The Government goes even further than this, for it allows goods in transit to be conveyed through the whole
The Monte Videan Government has granted a patent for introducing steamers on all its rivers to an Englishman, Mr. Bugglen. – (
Plans for forming such a canal were under consideration by the Commissioners appointed under the treaty of San Ildefonso, in 1778, to fix the boundaries of the Spanish and Portuguese possessions.