Office of the Historian

No. 8.
Mr. Hanna to Mr. Bayard.

[Extract.]
Legation of the United States,
Buenos Ayres, March 22, 1888. (Received April 28.)
No. 143.]

Sir: Referring to my No. 106, of December 24, 1887, in which I ventured the opinion this country would some day become a formidable rival of the United States in the production of the cereals, so important in the volume of our exports, I now send you some valuable figures published this morning in one of the Buenos Ayres dailies as correctly taken from official reports.

This people will produce wool almost exclusively if they are encouraged to do so, because most profitable to them. But the great United States market, the most desirable in the world, now shuts its doors against this production and drives its producers to the alternative of supplying the vast and profitable demands of Europe with that which once was almost the only hope of Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Minnesota.

It is idle to hope that Argentine industry, now attracting such wide attention as a commercial factor, will have anything to do with us on any other than a reciprocity basis. If they can not trade with us in the usual way, by exchange, they will look elsewhere and act independently, and what is still more serious, in direct conflict with us. This they have begun to do already by a perceptible diminution of their favorite pastoral industry for the cultivation of wheat, corn, barley, and linseed.

We not only have had no ships of our own to build up a carrying trade with them, but when other enterprise has in part supplied this need and their wool product has been sent to us they have found our ports shut and sealed against them.

And what is true about the Argentine nation is just as true with reference to Uruguay and Paraguay, rapidly developing into mighty empires of thrift and trade.

I have, etc.,

Bayless W. Hanna.
[Page 11]
[Inclosure in No. 143.]

The exports have been as follows:

Years. Wheat. Flour. Maize. Linseed.
Kilos. Kilos. Kilos. Kilos.
1878 109,611 2,919,793 19,064,044 104,279
1879 7,547,438 1,603,045 29,521,317 246,034
1880 25,669,317 1,428,046 15,032,015 957,999
1881 1,165,628 1,287,396 25,052,189 6,394,518
1882 157,078 548,779 107,327,155 23,351,794
1883 1,705,292 4,814,385 18,634,351 23,064,736
1884 60,754,677 3,743,389 113,710,088 33,996,950
1885 108,499,228 7,447,077 197,859,612 69,426,934
1886 37,864,413 5,262,222 231,663,300 37,689,967
1887 237,865,925 5,386,448 361,456,705 81,183,742
Total 481,338,607 34,470,580 1,117,318,776 276,417,943

1886. 1887.
Kilos. Value. Kilos. Value.
Wheat 37,864,417 $1,510,388 Wheat 237,865,925 $9,514,637
Flax 37,689,969 1,825,199 Linseed 81,183,752 4,059,187
Maize 231,650,300 4,663,421 Maize 361,457,705 7,229,154
Peanuts 769,197 30,747. Peanuts 3,367,300 134,696
Turnips 2,142,944 85,709 Turnips 940,821 37,633
3,190 945 Various 132,785 5,307
Total 8,106,399 Total 20,980,617