Word: abernon
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Said Lord d'Abernon sonorously: "The fact belongs to history that England was the first foreign country to manifest sympathy for Argentina and to offer material help." Then, while his Jockey Club audience occasionally cheered, the Viscount recalled that Britain has nearly two billion dollars invested in Argentina, mostly in railways and cattle. Humorously he noted that Argentina's Prize Bull of 1929 had just been bought at auction in Buenos Aires by the British Bovril (Beef Extract) Co. (slogan: BOVRIL puts BEEF into YOU!). "It seems to me," concluded Viscount d'Abernon, "that the reciprocal friendship uniting our countries...
Thus far proceedings had been sufficiently decorous, but now Sir Malcolm Robertson, British Ambassador to Argentina and not a member of the d'Abernon Trade Mission, hove up upon his feet and cried: "Let the price of Argentine meat and wheat rise! Thanks to the work which you are going to give the British workman he will be able to meet these conditions with the extra money which will be put in his pocket...
Such was the first inkling that Sir Malcolm might have roughed out in recent months a reciprocal trade agreement between Britain and Argentina which awaited only final negotiation by Viscount d'Abernon and his confirmation in behalf of the Imperial Government. At Buenos Aires the Jockey Club banquet was followed by rapid, intensive, well-hushed work. Paradoxically, the first official announcement of success was made in far off London. To respectful British newsgatherers a frosty official of the Foreign Office cau- tiously revealed that: 1) The agreement signed by Viscount d'Abernon last...
When the London announcement was cabled to Argentina, ferreting Buenos Aires reporters wormed out the further fact that the d'Abernon mission had arranged an Anglo-Argentine floating credit of £16,000,000 ($77,760.000) to facilitate the mutual buying and selling provided for in the main agreement. The usually well-informed La Prensa declared that the British Government would use its £8,000,000 ($38,880,000) purchases of Australian food and raw materials "to feed and clothe the British Army and Navy...
There was also a report that Lord d'Abernon had arranged for a $200,000,000 private British loan to the Argentine Government for road building purposes. Both La Prensa and equally famed La Nation were skeptical of the constitutional right of Argentina's fanatically secretive President Hipolito Irigoyen to sign rich, special agreements without consulting the Argentine Congress. "Even members of the President's Cabinet," said La Nation indignantly, "knew absolutely nothing of what was afoot...