Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 237, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1917 — War Time Life on the River Plate [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

War Time Life on the River Plate

..rpHE PLATE” and “Rio I Grande” :*What pictures are conjured up in one’s mind * by these names!—pictures of windjammer days, when the chanfey, “We’re bound to the Rio Grande,” had a meaning which it has now lost and will never regain. For its size the Rio de la Plata was. In the piping times of peace, one of the busiest rivers of the world. Between its three chief ports, Montevideo, Buenos Aires and Rosario —with nothing else worth mentioning—there are some 300 miles. As for Its width during the first 100 miles or so, the low shores are scarcely visible during the first day’s steaming, and the sunsets are some of the most gorgeous in the world. - Indeed, between Buenos Aires and Rosario there was one that will stand to me always as the sum total of gorgeousness In sunsets, w’rltes J. E. Patterson in the Graphic. In spite of nature’s limitlessness in such things, I doubt if she could go one better. The sun was dead ahead up the river, which was then about a quarter of a mile wide. He was a hand's breadth above the horizon (holding the hand at arm’s length), already darkly ruddy enough to look straight at without eye-strain. To right and left of him, over the dark-green country and the subtropical banks of the river, all conceivable tints of gold, pale yellow and the very thinnest of greens stretched aw’ay to the indefinite grayblue of evening. Whilst straight down the middle of the erstwhile faintly terra-cotta stream there was the most regal, purple pathway that mortal eyes ever saw, and from it to the luscious green of the swampy banks the water shaded away through deep terra-cotta to pale reddy-brown. Said I to the captain, who was a seahoned visitor to those latitudes: “Jove, but that's ‘some’ sunset! I haven’t seen one like It before the world round 1” “No," he replied; “even Kaiser Bill and his war can’t alter these River Plate sunsets.” War Hits Rosario Hard. As the Indescribable beauty' of that sunset has led me away up the river I

will begin with Rosario, a semi-Span-ish town, built of quarried stone and of over 100,000 inhabitants, with open, yet rather squalid-looking suburbs. It has a fine shopping center, although the streets are much too narrow for so hot a country. There is an efficient electric-tram service, by which one can go well into the country; and along the riverside, abreast the center of the town, extends a quay (there are docks), where dozens of vessels can lie to .load or discharge, in addition to grain elevators above and below the town. In peace-time twenty or more steamers and a few sailing craft were a common sight at that quayside, with others anchored in the stream to boot. Now the maximum is about half a dozen. Consequently the once-thronged streets, the bustle of shops and offices, and the merry life of evening resorts, have become things of the past. By day shops and streets are sparsely frequented, whilst restaurants and other places of amusement are comparatively quiet by night. The place pretty nearly lived on its shipping and the general handling _of goocfe in transit. The shipping is almost gone; therefore the circulation of money has dwindled to half of what it was. Buenos Aires a Bit Subdued. In Buenos Aires one finds a capital of something like a million people. “The Paris of the West,” they tell you, as they point to their really splendid avenues, squares and palatial build-ings—-all comparatively netv —to their programs of gland opera, drama, variety shows and other phases of gay evening life. To these the war has made but small difference, say some, whilst others maintain that the change is deep and far-reaching. They back

up their arguments by pointing out the rise in the cost of living, the closing of some places of amusement (as in Rosario), the decrease in shipping and so in the circulation of money, find the sort of armed neutrality between the British and German elements, Instead of the fraternizing that used to go on between them. “The Paris of the West” Buenos Aires undoubtedly is, despite the war; but it is a slightly subdued Paris, all the same, and all because of the war. In ordinary times it is more than a gay imitator of the French capital. It is the commerce and the money center of South America, and, apparently, It will long remain so, now that it has got the start and has behind It a country whose natural riches are in abundance and not yet more than tapped. But although the Argentine capital has now great and beautiful marble buildings, wide, subtropical thoroughfares and rest-places, it also has many narrow, mean and repulsive streets. For the present labor far exceeds the demand, and prices are exceedingly high. Still, when the war ends, trade on “the Plate” must naturally return to its former very comfortable proportions, and grow and grow. Montevideo Lesa-Affected. In Montevideo war changes are not nearly so great as in the Argentine ports mentioned. True, shipping has decreased there, yet not in the same proportion as elsewhere on the river. There Is a falling off in trade, therefore in labor and money, as is only natural during a war that has economically affected every inhabited coastline and hinterlatjjl in the world. At the same time, Montevideo is the capital of a country that can easily supply Itself with all the necessities and many of the luxuries of life, and pretty well does so now. Again, by some curious, racial bent the Uruguayans seem to be a more resolute snd Independent, thpugh not a more initiative people than the Argentines—that is, those of Montevideo give one that Impression. In Montevideo prices have gone up more than 10 per cent on the whole; and so far as I could ascertain even this was unwarranted, except on a few

articles of commerce. The city and its neighborhood have taken the war very philosophically; it has affected the real natives so very little, and they say they have no fear of trouble, in any case, with the German colonies amongst them.

On the River Plate.

Urbano Park, Montevideo.