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The British in Argentina pp 339–366Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Epilogue: Pathways to Integration

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Part of the book series: Britain and the World ((BAW))

Abstract

Efforts to revive British trade from the late 1950s were unsuccessful except during short bursts of Argentine economic growth. The British sector of the Argentine economy now comprised only a handful of multinationals led by Unilever and Imperial Chemical Industries. Neither played the same role as the former railway companies in providing employment for the British community and keeping the community together. Long term, the community declined, its ties with Britain gradually weakening. The section analyses British reactions to the Argentine military dictatorship of the late 1970s, a regime notorious for extreme repression. It concludes with the responses of the Anglo-Argentines to disputes over the Falkland Islands ending with the war of 1982. The war caused psychological crisis among many Anglo-Argentines. A centrepiece of the chapter is the integration of the British community in Argentina.

War will convert most of the Anglo-Argentines into Argentines.

Buenos Aires Herald, May 1982

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Charles Wilson. The History of Unilever, vol. 2. London: Cassell, 1970, 354–359; also vol. 3, 171. For a broader view, see John Stopford. “The Origins of British-based Multinational Manufacturing Enterprises.” Business History Review, Fall 1974, Vol. 83, No 2. 303–335.

  2. 2.

    For background on the move to Argentina, see Lever Hermanos. Report no. 1, for 1924. (Unilever archives: UNI/RM/DC/2/2/4/1).

  3. 3.

    Lever Hermanos. Report no. 3, for 1927 (UNI/RM/DC/2/2/4/3).

  4. 4.

    See Lever Hermanos. Reports nos. 14 and 17 (1941 and 1943) (UNI/RM/DC/2/2/4/14 and 17).

  5. 5.

    See reports by visiting executives, 1924–1937. Lever Hermanos. Reports Nos. 1-13 (UNI/RM/DC/2/2/4/1-13).

  6. 6.

    Data from the industrial census of 1936, cited in South American Journal 13 Nov. 1937.

  7. 7.

    Jeff Pearcy. Recording an Empire: An Accounting History of Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd. 1926–1976. Glasgow: The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, 2001, 13.

  8. 8.

    W.J. Reader. Imperial Chemical Industries. A History, vol. 2, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975, Reader, Imperial Chemical Industries. 227.

  9. 9.

    Reader, Imperial Chemical Industries, 2, 223–225.

  10. 10.

    T.C. Barker. The Glassmakers. Pilkington: the rise of an international company. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1977, 389, 413.

  11. 11.

    R.P.T. Davenport-Hines and Julie Slinn. Glaxo.: A History to 1962. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, 104.

  12. 12.

    Lever Hermanos. Reports nos. 14, 17, 20, 21, 1941–1944 (UNI/RM/DC/2/2/4/14, 17, 21).

  13. 13.

    Lever Hermanos. Report no. 22, 1947 (UNI/RM/DC/2/2/4/22).

  14. 14.

    Lever Hermanos. Report no. 24, 1952 (UNI/RM/DC/2/2/4/24). Report no. 31, 1959 suggested the company imported some equipment around 1949 but none afterwards.

  15. 15.

    Davenport-Hines and Slinn, Glaxo, 262.

  16. 16.

    Review of the River Plate 8 May, 1953.

  17. 17.

    Balfour to FO 7 July, 1950. T 236/3023.

  18. 18.

    Conditions in Britain are noted in The Economist 24 Jan. and 7 Mar. 1953.

  19. 19.

    For Glyn’s views, see The Economist 13 Apr. 1954.

  20. 20.

    Foreign Office to Buenos Aires 22 Nov. 1955. PREM 11/808.

  21. 21.

    British Chamber of Commerce. Monthly Journal, Sept. 1956.

  22. 22.

    British Chamber of Commerce. Monthly Journal May and Nov. 1957.

  23. 23.

    British Chamber of Commerce. Monthly Journal August 1958. The firms display goods included steel maker Arthur Balfour and Co, the electrical engineering firm Metropolitan Vickers, Hillman cars, diesel engines and machine tools.

  24. 24.

    British Chamber of Commerce. Monthly Journal, Oct. 1958, Apr. 1959. British assessments ignored “Invisibles” that some commentators still claimed negated the trade deficit. See Review of the River Plate 28 Feb. 1955.

  25. 25.

    Accounts of the Frondizi presidency include Clarence Zuvekas Jr. Argentine Economic Policies under the Frondizi government, 1958–1962. Ph.D. diss. Washington University, 1969; Lewis, Argentine Capitalism, 302–310; Gary Wynia, Argentina in the Postwar Era. Politics and Economic Policy Making in a Divided Society. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1978, 87–107; Laura Randall. An Economic History of Argentina in the Twentieth Century. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978, 161; Richard D. Mallon, in collaboration with Juan V. Sourrouille. Economic Policy Making in a Conflict Society. The Argentine Case. Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 1975, 19–24; Rock, Argentina, 1516–1987, 337–343.

  26. 26.

    See Commercial Minister Denzil I. Dunnet in British Chamber of Commerce. Monthly Journal, October 1959.

  27. 27.

    British Chamber of Commerce, Monthly Journal Sept. 1959. The government made a special appeal for investment by ten foreign companies of which three were US, two German, and one each from France, Italy, Switzerland and Britain. The scope of foreign investment is summarised in Wynia. Argentina in the Postwar Era, 91.

  28. 28.

    British Chamber of Commerce. Monthly Journal May, June 1961.

  29. 29.

    UNI/RM/OC/2/2/4/32 (Knox) and 38 (Nunan).

  30. 30.

    UNI/RM/OC/2/2/4/32 (Knox). The company owed most to the Banco de Boston, the Banco Holandés Unido and the Banco del Canadá.

  31. 31.

    UNI/RM/OC/2/2/4/31 (Klijnstra and Knox).

  32. 32.

    For this discussion of railway profits, see The Economist 22 June 1946.

  33. 33.

    For this reports, see UNI/RM/OC/2/2/4/103 (Martin).

  34. 34.

    Guillermo O’Donnell. Bureaucratic Authoritarianism. Argentina, 1966–1973, in Comparative Perspective. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988, 213. Further discussion of domestic financing of multinationals appears in Randall, Argentina, 165–166. Mallon and Sourrouille observed that multinationals adopted “minimum use of their own funds and maximum use of local financing, thereby generating claims for profit remittances abroad far exceeding the amount of capital brought in.” Mallon and Sourrouille, Economic Policy Making, 90.

  35. 35.

    On such issues, see Juan V. Sourrouille. “La presencia y el comportamiento de las empresas extranjeras en el sector industrial argentino.” Buenos Aires: Estudios CEDES, 1, no. 2: 1978; also Mallon and Sourrouille, Economic Policy Making, 80. As noted in a more recent summary, “production [by the multinationals] for the highly protected domestic market generated a distorted structure of costs and relative prices, with low productivity and oligopolistic tendencies.” María Inés Barbero and Fernando Rocchi. “Industry.” In A New Economic History of Argentina. Edited by Gerardo della Paolera and Alan M. Taylor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, 285–286.

  36. 36.

    Karl Marx. Capital, vol. 1, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974, 585–586. Issues are summarised in Mallon and Sourrouille, Economic Policy Making, 22–24, 70–76.

  37. 37.

    British Chamber of Commerce, Monthly Journal May 1960; also April 1962.

  38. 38.

    The first licensing agreements between SIAM Di Tella and various foreign automobile companies, including one with the BMC, are noted in Thomas C. Cochran and Rubén E. Reina. Espíritu de empresa en la Argentina. Buenos Aires: Emecé, 1965, 254–255.

  39. 39.

    UNI/RM/OC/2/2/4/41 (Nunan) and 43 (Klijnstra).

  40. 40.

    UNI/RM/OC/2/2/4/44 (Briggs).

  41. 41.

    Zuvekas, Frondizi, 125.

  42. 42.

    Review of the River Plate 30 Jan. 1965.

  43. 43.

    On the Parry Report, see Rory M. Miller. “Academic Entrepreneurs, Public Policy and the Growth of Latin American Studies during the Cold War.” Latin American Perspectives. Vol. 30, No. 20, 2018, 1–23.

  44. 44.

    British Chamber of Commerce. Monthly Bulletin Aug. 1966.

  45. 45.

    British Chamber of Commerce. Monthly Bulletin, Aug. 1966.

  46. 46.

    On foot and mouth disease, see Abigail Woods. A Manufactured Plague? The History of Foot and Mouth Disease in Britain. London: Earthscan, 2004, suggesting political reasons for the 1967 ban on Argentine meat.

  47. 47.

    Guardian 28 Nov. 1967.

  48. 48.

    The numerous accounts of the Onganía era include Wynia, Argentina, 169–184, O’Donnell, El estado burocrático. Alain Rouquié. Poder militar y sociedad política en la Argentina. 2 vols. Translated by Arturo Iglesias Echegary, Buenos Aires: Emecé, 7th ed. 1983, Juan C. Pablo. Política anti-inflacionaria en la Argentina, 1967–1970. Buenos Aires: Amorrortu, 1970; William C. Smith. Authoritarianism and the Crisis of the Argentine Political Economy. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989, 48–162.

  49. 49.

    Comments on broader commercial trends appear in British Chamber of Commerce. Britannia May 1969.

  50. 50.

    Buenos Aires Herald 17 Nov. 1970. The ECGD required deposits of 10 per cent as opposed to the usual 15 per cent, with repayments extendible over five years.

  51. 51.

    British Chamber of Commerce. Britannia Apr. 1971.

  52. 52.

    British Chamber of Commerce. Britannia April 1971, and comments by departing Ambassador Michael Hadow in Britannia Dec. 1972. On Levingston and his economy minister Aldo Ferrer, see O’Donnell, Bureaucratic Authoritarianism, 211–212. In 1966, Ferrer declared himself a supporter of mixing national and foreign capital to ensure “a sufficient flow of foreign resources while preserving the position of national capital as protagonist.” Aldo Ferrer. “El desarrollo de las industrias básicas y la sustitución de importaciones.” In Estrategias de industrialización para la Argentina, edited by Mario S. Brodersohn. Buenos Aires, Editorial del Instituto, 1970. During his ministerial stint five years later under Levingston, Ferrer adopted a more radical nationalist position.

  53. 53.

    British Chamber of Commerce. Britannia, May 1973.

  54. 54.

    British Chamber of Commerce. Summary 1975.

  55. 55.

    The mass of published writing on this episode starts with Argentina. Comisión Nacional sobre la Desparición de Personas. Nunca Más. The Report of the Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared; with an introduction by Ronald Dworkin. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1986. Recent contributions include Emilio A. Crenzel. Memories of the Argentina Disappearances: The Political History of Nunca Más. New York: Routledge, 2012.

  56. 56.

    UNI/RM/OC/2/2/4/103 (Martin).

  57. 57.

    British Chamber of Commerce in the Argentine Republic. Sixty-Fourth Annual Report (30 June, 1977).

  58. 58.

    Quoted in Review of the River Plate 31 Aug. 1963.

  59. 59.

    For discussions of the programme, see Rock, Argentina, 366–373; Wynia, Argentina, 230. Smith, Authoritarianism, 234–239, identifies five short-term phases during Martínez de Hoz’s tenure principally involving an inconclusive battle against inflation.

  60. 60.

    British Chamber of Commerce. Sixty-Seventh Annual Report, 1980.

  61. 61.

    Report in Standard 4 Dec. 1951. A consular report in 1953 showed 15,000 persons registered at the British Embassy and 24,000 who were unregistered, to make a total of 40,439. See Chancery, Buenos Aires to Consular Department 25 Jan. 1953 FO 425/7.

  62. 62.

    Chancery to Consular Department 25 Jan. 1953. FO 495/7.

  63. 63.

    Triennial Report for 1979 FCO 47/1207.

  64. 64.

    Edbrooke in Bulletin of British Community Council Vol. 9, No. 7, 1964.

  65. 65.

    UNI/RM/OC/2/2/4/36 (Hartoz and Laycock).

  66. 66.

    Figures on the workforce of multinationals quoted in El Cronista Comercial 22 Aug. 1988.

  67. 67.

    The Anglican community at Martínez is described in the magazine Angle June 1965.

  68. 68.

    Standard 12 June, 1958, recording the numbers of OBEs.

  69. 69.

    A discussion of marriage practices appeared in Standard 22 Mar. 1956.

  70. 70.

    Hadow to Douglas-Home. Triennial Report 28 Sept. 1970. FCO 47/418.

  71. 71.

    “Triennial Report.” Hadow to Douglas-Home 20 Sept. 1970. FCO 47/418.

  72. 72.

    Buenos Aires Herald 11 Apr. 1971.

  73. 73.

    Buenos Aires Herald 23 Oct. 1972.

  74. 74.

    Buenos Aires Herald 5 Apr. 1970, 24 Apr. 1972.

  75. 75.

    Buenos Aires Herald 28 Apr. and 25 Aug. 1972.

  76. 76.

    Buenos Aires Herald 1 June, 1971.

  77. 77.

    Buenos Aires Herald 11, 21 Dec. 1972.

  78. 78.

    His first abduction is noted Buenos Aires Herald 7 June, 1973; for his release, see 8 and 10 Aug.

  79. 79.

    New York Times 1 Sept. 1975.

  80. 80.

    UNI/RM/OC/2/2/4/96 (Graham).

  81. 81.

    Falkland Islands Review Committee. Report of a Committee of Privy Counsellors [The Franks Report]. CAB 292/1 (1982).

  82. 82.

    Falkland Islands Review. Testimony of E. Heath. CAB 242/51. Reproduced in Falklands Islands Review Committee, Franks Report.

  83. 83.

    Falklands Islands Review Committee, Franks Report, 29; also Informe Rattenbach. El drama de Malvinas, Buenos Aires: Espartaco, 1988, 27–32 summarising the diplomatic exchanges of 1979–1980 led on the British side by Nicholas Ridley.

  84. 84.

    Informe Rattenbach, Malvinas, 37.

  85. 85.

    On the preliminaries to the Argentine invasion, see Lawrence Freedman and Virginia Gamba-Stonehouse. Signals of War. The Falklands Conflict of 1982. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991, 3–83. A study focussing on the timing of the invasion appears in John Arguilla and Maria Moyano Rasmussen. “The Origins of the South Atlantic War of 1982.” Journal of Latin American Studies, 33, 4, 2001, 739–775.

  86. 86.

    Quoted in Buenos Aires Herald 6 Nov. 1982.

  87. 87.

    Self-determination and sovereignty are discussed in neutral style in Lowell S. Gustafson. The Sovereignty Dispute over the Falkland (Malvinas) Islands. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

  88. 88.

    On the treatment of conscripts, see Daniel Kon. Los chicos de la guerra. Hablan los soldados que estuvieron en Malvinas. 9th Edition. Buenos Aires: Galerna, 1983.

  89. 89.

    Informe Rattenbach, Malvinas, 41.

  90. 90.

    Quoted in Gustafson, Sovereignty, 145.

  91. 91.

    An enquiry commissioned in Argentina four years after the war concluded the British government currently expended £500 million annually on the islands’ defence. Máximo Bonich, Oscar Camilion et alia. (Consejo de Estudios del Atlántico Sur). “Argentina-United Kingdom. An Analysis of Relations.” Translated by S.M. Williams and R.H. Gooding. Buenos Aires, July 1986. Mimeo. (Copy in Chamber of Commerce.)

  92. 92.

    Buenos Aires Herald 20 Nov. 1970.

  93. 93.

    Review of the River Plate 10 June 1982.

  94. 94.

    Murchison to Thatcher. Facsimile in Buenos Aires Herald 8 Apr. 1982.

  95. 95.

    Sophie Ares. “Divided loyalties. A Young Soldier’s Return to the Falklands 20 Years on.” The Scotsman 30 Aug. 2002.

  96. 96.

    Buenos Aires Herald 29 Apr. 1982.

  97. 97.

    Buenos Herald 2 July, 1982.

  98. 98.

    Buenos Aires Herald 16 April 1982.

  99. 99.

    Buenos Aires Herald 12 and 25 May 1982, quoting the Daily Express; Florencia Cortés Conde. The Anglo-Argentine Bilingual Experience. Ph.D. diss.: University of Texas at Austin, 1993, 34. See also Florencia Cortés Conde. Los angloargentinos en Buenos Aires: lengua, identidad y nación antes y después de Malvinas. Buenos Aires: Biblos, 2007.

  100. 100.

    The measures are listed in La Nación 12 June 1982; also Ámbito Financiero 26 July 1982.

  101. 101.

    La Nación 6 Oct. 1987. “Situación jurídica de los bienes de propriedad británica en la Argentina.”

  102. 102.

    The Independent 17 Nov. 1993.

  103. 103.

    First Magazine 1998; Cámara de Comercio Argentino-Británico Feb. 2000.

  104. 104.

    See Cámara de Comercio, Influencia Británica.

  105. 105.

    Review of the River Plate 12 May 1982.

  106. 106.

    Buenos Aires Herald 24 Sept. 1982.

  107. 107.

    “Suburban Players” quoted in Buenos Aires Herald 28 Nov. 1982.

  108. 108.

    Buenos Aires Herald 13 May 1982.

  109. 109.

    From handwritten responses to the survey questionnaire by Florencia Cortés Conde, 1990. Biblioteca Max Buch, Universidad de San Andrés, Buenos Aires.

  110. 110.

    Cortés Conde, Bilingual Experience, 88.

  111. 111.

    Cortés Conde, Questionnaire.

  112. 112.

    Cortés Conde, Questionnaire.

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  1. Department of History, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    David Rock

  2. Centre of Latin American Studies, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    David Rock

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Rock, D. (2019). Epilogue: Pathways to Integration. In: The British in Argentina. Britain and the World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97855-0_9

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