difference in the strUCl:ure ol manutacturing lJel:ween the two countries in 1913 was the
heavy concentration in the food and drink industries in Argentina. Over half of the value
of production in manufacturing was contributed by food industries in that year in
Argentina as against 5
0 /0
from metals and machinery. In Australia on the other hand the
contribution of these two industries were about equal, each accounting for almost a
quarter of manufacturing output?
7
By 1959 however food production as a proport ion of
total manufacturing output had dropped to a fifth in Argentina and to about an eighth in
Australia. Metals and machinery manufacture had risen to nearly ?5J%
in Argentina and
44 0
/0
in Australia?!! These figures bear out the point made earlier that perhaps the mast
significant difference between the industrial histories of the two countries is that
Australia had a viable steel industry after the First World War, whereas the Argentinian
steel industry did not really get under way until the 1950s.
Apart from the development of the steel industry the pattern of industrial
development in the two countries over the past half century has been similar in many
respects. In both countries the tariff was used to encourage overseas firms to establish
plants, although, until the 1930s, the Australian government was more concious and
deliberate in formu lat ing protectio nist policies than was the Argentine government.
In the inter-war period industries employing the "new" technology
b~an
in both
Australia and Argentina, although in mast cases plantswere established in Australia a few
Years earlier than in Argentina?9 By the mid-19?5Js in both countries, foreign flrms had
established plants for the manufacture of chemicals, textiles, petroleum refining and
motor vehicle assembly. In the post War II perlod both countries have acquired a wide
range of modern industries ranging from petrochemical and plastics to electronics.
DERIVATlVE NATURE OF INDUSTRIALlZATION
A complaint often made in both Argentina and Australia concerns the derivative
nature of th is industrialization.
U
ni ike the case of agriculture, however, where technology
has to be adapted to peculiar roi! and climatic conditions, modern industrial technology is
ubiquitous. 80th Australia and Argentina have government-supported programmes for
industrial research but these can only expect to make marginal contributions compared
with technological innovations available from overSeaS.
80th Australia and Argentina derived their technology in the first instance through
migrants and capital inflows from the more economically and technologically advanced
countries. In each case the derived technology was adapted and rnodified, and in rome
cases further developed, to ensure more efficient utilization of the available factors of
production. In the market environment of the nineteenth century appropiate technology
could be acquired through the process of resource transfer according to the operation of
the law of comparative advantage. Thus capital and skills were attracted to raJions of
recent settlment because they could combine optimally with natural rerources to produce
what the market was prepared to pay foro With the new science-based technology the
"ball game" has changed. Trends in world trade indicate that the dynamic element has
27
2!!
29
José Panettieri, S{ntesis Histórica de Desarrollo Industrial Argentino, (Ediciones Macchi,
Buenos Aires, 1969), p. 59. Boehm, op. cit., p. 127.
O(az Alejandro, op. cit., p. 224.
Boehm, op. cit., p. 127.
See Colin Forster, Industrial Development in Australia 1920-1930, (A.N.U., Canberra, 1964)
and
J.
Panettieri, op. cit.
187
