18
relationship between chilled beef and compliance. Neither estimate is statistically different from
zero, though. In summary, Table 2 counts as strong evidence against the trade linkage
hypothesis.
I conclude this section by considering how legislators from cattle-raising provinces
behaved in their attempts to shape national policy. By far the most important cattle-raising
province was Buenos Aires, represented in the Argentine senate by Matías Sanchez Sorondo. As
a deputy in the lower chamber of the national legislature during the 1920s, Sanchez Sorondo had
earned a reputation as an energetic defender of ranching interests. He continued this advocacy in
the 1930s in his new role as senator. If default on the external debt had endangered beef
exporters, surely this senator would have lobbied for strict repayment. Instead, Sanchez Sorondo
authored and sponsored a bill that would have required the central government to suspend
amortization and reduce interest payments on the national debt. This was the only pro-default
bill introduced into the national legislature during the 1930s.
A second important cattle center was the province of Santa Fe, located just north of
Buenos Aires. Lisandro de la Torre, lead senator from Santa Fe, was known as a strong defender
of ranching interests and had served as president of the Rural Society in the city of Rosario.
Nevertheless, when the province of Santa Fe suspended payment on its foreign debt, Senator de
la Torre argued that the moratorium should extend nationwide. He complained that “Argentina’s
obstinate insistence on meeting her foreign debt,” particularly in a period of depression and with
depreciated exchange rate, was “materially prejudicial to the immediate interests of the country”
and, with respect to the future, “little if anything better than a beau geste.”
39
Such behavior by
39
La Nación (July 27, 1932: 1).
Convention