TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATION. Ship ping.—The increase in shipping facilities has kept pace with commercial progress. In 1869 there was a total of 1698 sailing vessels and steamships in the country. In 1895 there were 2654; but as progress in shipbuilding made it possible to build larger vessels, the total increase in tonnage was much greater, viz., from 151,177 tons in 1869 to 368,634 in 1895, an increase of 144 per cent. In 1895, 406 of these ships were steamers, the rest being sailing vessels. The tonnage of the steam ers, however, was 190,242, or more than one-half of the total. More than 66 per cent. of the steamers and SS per cent. of the sailing vessels carried the Argentine flag, Faiglish and German vessels being next in importance. The actual shipping done by these vessels is shown by the following figures of foreign trade: Number. Tons.
1890 13,873 6,340,955 1897 10,303 6,064,004 1899 10,184 6,939,567 RAILWAYs. Perhaps in no other field has the economic progress of Argentina been so well exemplified as in its railway development. Argen tina has a larger railway mileage than any other country in America south of the United States, although it has only half the area and about one fourth the population of Brazil, and less than half the population of :Mexico. The railway mile age in 1900 aggregated 10,595 miles, being dis tributed among 26 lines. Four are owned and op erated by the nation, six are owned and operated by the provinces, with a mileage of S per cent. of the total; the rest are managed by private com panies. The first railway in Argentina was built in 1854, and extended for about 12 miles west of Buenos Ayres. In 1860 there were 19 miles of railway. In 1870 there were 454 miles, including the Central Argentina Railway, extending from Rosario on the Paran5 River to Cordoba in the heart of the country. Between 1870 and 1880 were constructed the great trunk lines leading north from Cordoba to Tueunlan, and from Villa .Maria to Villa Mercedes. bringing the mileage in 1880 up to 1434. The decade that followed eclipsed all previous records, and the mileage was increased four-fold, reaching a total of 5860 in 1890. By that year the country was covered with a network of railways branching out from the three great industrial centres on the Parana River—Buenos Ayres, Santa Fe and Rosario. On the south, the railway reached the sea at Bahia Blanca; on the west, it was extended to :Mendoza at the foot of the Andes, and not far from the Chilean boundary; on the north, to Salta, also elae to Chile. Finally, in the decade between 18:10 and 1900, the mileage was nearly doubled, one line stretching southward as far as Neuquen, another, the Trans-Andean, being opened from :Mendoza to Punta de las Vacas.
On the economic side Argentina dill not escape the experience which has been the lot of all coun tries where railway building has been allowed to go unchecked under private management. Exees sive issues of capital stock, over-speculation and kindred abuses accompanying the great railway "boom" of the eighties had their day of reckoning in and contributed in no small share to the great eommercial panic of 1890, when the Government found it impossible to pay interest on railway securities guaranteed by it. It was thatexperienee that led to the gradual withdrawal of guarantees to railways, and the radical reform in railway nmnagement which eulminated in the creation of a special :Ministry of Railways, a sharp super vision of railway management, and a strong tendency toward Government ownership and man agement of railways. Of the existing trunk lines of the country five, with a mileage of 1500, were built by the national Government at a cost of 80,000,000 pesos gold (about $76,000,000) ; three lines, with a mileage of 1240, were built by the three richest proinees—Buonos Ayres, Santa Fe, and Entre Rios—at a total cost of 56,000,000 pesos ($53,000,000). In a word, more than one fourth of the total railway mileage of the country has been built by the najonal and provincial Governments. While the cost of the Government railways has been about 28.650 pesos per kilo metre, that of The private lines has been 35,320 pesos per kilometre. In all, the Government paid out over $44.006.000 in guarantees for private roads. At the end of 1898 the total capital in vested in Argentine railways amounted to 5'23, 000,000 pesos, of which 435,000,000 pesos repre sented private roads 55,000.000, national ways: and 33,000,000, provincial railways. The railways employed over 37,000 men in 1898 as against 20,000 in 1893.
TELEGRApus. More than one-half of all the tel egraph lines belong to the Government, less than a tenth to private companies, and the rest to the railways. There were 27,584 miles of telegraph lines in Argentina in 1900 as against 20,415 miles in 1891. A "snow cable" conneets Buenos Ayres with Valparaiso, whence a submarine cable con nects with San Francisco, Cal. Buenos Ayres is connected with :Montevideo by submarine cable, and also with Europe by way of Rio de Janeiro and the Cape Verde Islands; and in this indirect way with the United States also. There is be .
sides a cable between Buenos Ayres and Lisbon.