A Letter From Brazil
To those of us who have read the international gossip of the last few months in regard to the Monroe Doctrine and its bearing upon real or supposed South American encroachments, notably the German supremacy in southern Brazil, a reasonably clear conclusion is possible as to the relations between Europe and the United States in apposition with the South American republics. But to the same readers it would prove strangely difficult to define our direct relations with South America in general or with any particular state.
There is a widespread idea among us that South America is composed of a conglomeration of republics perpetually in revolution; and that, virtually, is the extent of information on the subject possessed by many who deem themselves proportionately informed on prevailing conditions in the world. The United States of Brazil comprise a territory more or less equal to that of our fortyfive states, and have an estimated population of 18,000,000; but how many of our college students can tell, offhand, what is the language of this vast republic ?
Such ignorance is, in itself, to be deplored, but when we consider its practical prejudice to our commercial expansion, it is to be doubly censured. We read the latest news of successful American invasion of European markets with avidity, and feel elated with the storming of some commercial fortress, but do we realize that the pioneers in the opening of the tremendous territory to the south are not Americans ? We seem to forget that our fabulous fortunes had their birth in the exploration of natural resources and the conditions dependent upon the opening of a rich country, and not in gambling on a fluctuating exchange or in the forcing of a market. To dig mines, strike oil, build railways, and raise wheat and cattle have been the mighty girders in America’s unique fortune building; and it is to be regretted that Brazil’s great field for parallel enterprise is either going begging, or to German, French, and English capitalists. One might judge that the lack of interest among us in regard to this giant among countries is a proof of its lack of advantages to American enterprise, but I would rather say that this ignorance is the key to our otherwise inexplicable indifference.
In giving this short sketch of the present political, economic, and social status of Brazil, the largest of the Latin republics, I hope to let fall the first drop on the rock of indifference, and, by showing the readers of the Atlantic the problems and hopes of intelligent men of Brazil, to give them a basis upon which to found a just estimate of that country and its probable future, its place in the world, and its vital importance in our scheme of commercial expansion.
It is an injustice to place Brazil in the same category with the see-sawing governments of those South American republics which have never lawfully elected two successive chief executives. Since the transformation from empire to republic in 1889, the government has successfully put down rebellion on a large scale, and has held its own both at home and abroad, in the latter field by arbitration. This does not mean that the government has been a strong one, but merely that the conservative element has held down the balance.
If one seeks the reason that the ship of state has sailed so untroubled a course, it can be traced to the indolence, indifference, or ignorance of the mass of voters. The federal political body is divided into two parts — the Government and the Opposition. The former comprises all who are office holders; the latter, all who are not. If a man is put out of office he joins the opposition, and vice versa. Each withdrawing executive proposes and practically elects the government candidate to follow him, and the reform platforms which they invariably advance to gain the popular favor give the government a Tammany aspect.
This condition of affairs is unaccountable to any one who has in mind an American presidential election carried on before the eyes of an enthusiastic and excited people. Here the people take small, if any, part in the election which is consequently made to order by local political bosses. In a city numbering 200,000 inhabitants, during the late presidential election, I made it a point to ask each gentleman with whom I had occasion to speak whether he had voted. Not one answered in the affirmative, all giving as an excuse that the election was “made with a pen-point.” To the onlooker it was especially evident that the people do not vote, but regard the whole matter with an apathy hard to understand in a republic. However, this phase of Brazilian politics has not been unnoticed by prominent men, and at the close of Mr. Campos Salles’ term as chief executive it is pleasant to note that the electoral reform bill for which he asked in his inauguration message is now before the Senate in a perfected form and is about to become a law. This bill subjects the vote neglecter to a fine, and insures, to a great degree, the detection of false balloting.
Whether this measure will reach the root of the trouble and force interest in presidential affairs remains to be seen, but it at least shows an honorable desire on the part of the government to do away with the farce of the present system, and it is to be hoped that at the end of the coming term the election will prove a contrast to that of this year in which the government candidate, Mr. Rodrigues Alves, of the state of S. Paulo, was elected as soon as nominated.
In his recent message, consequent upon the election of the new candidate, Mr. Campos Salles reviewed his administration of the last four years, and compared the present state of the country with its condition at the time of his inaugural address in which he had declared the deplorable condition of the country’s finances, the problem against which he would direct all his energies. In his comparison Mr. Campos Salles showed that he has tried to better conditions in general in spite of the all-absorbing nature of the financial problem, and that the latter, though far from solved, is on the high road to solution if the policy of the present government is carried to its appointed end. He called the country’s attention to the new fortifications of the harbors of Rio and Santos, which place the former among the most strongly defended of the world’s ports, and to the project now before the Senate for so fortifying the port of Obidos as to make its guns an invulnerable barrier to the passage of unfriendly vessels into the Amazon. This latter measure is one of unusual interest at the present moment, when Brazil, in closing the great river to Bolivian traffic, is showing that she does not consider the regulation of 1867 binding, which opened the Amazon to international merchant marine, when Brazilian interests are involved.
Mr. Campos Salles’ attention, while turned toward the necessity of strengthening Brazil’s principal ports, was not blind to the needs of the army and instituted several reforms. Probably the most remarkable is the utilizing of the army’s engineers and soldiers in building the government strategic railway in the state of Paraná and in establishing three new telegraph lines. Both railway and telegraph lines are being instituted with the object of facilitating communication with the frontier. It should also be mentioned that the government has made an arrangement with one of the national coast steamship lines to carry on each of its boats two lieutenants of the Brazilian navy. These lieutenants are forced to keep a minute diary and report fully on their observations of the coast.
The financial question, however, was the paramount topic of the message, and the President summed up the government’s policy and its results in such a way as to throw the brightest light possible upon a still discouraging monetary situation. Mr. Campos Salles commenced his term of office just after the celebration of the contract of July 15, 1898, between Brazil and the Rothschilds, who, for a long time, have been the country’s creditors, which gave origin to the present funding loan of ten million pounds sterling.
This contract is of especial interest because one of its clauses has determined the government monetary policy throughout the last four years. At the time of the contract Brazilian paper was at a depreciation of 73.37 per cent, and the inconvertible paper in circulation, calculated at par, amounted to $430, - 447, 079.52. Back of this there was absolutely no gold, and naturally the capitalists sought some means of insuring the government’s ability to meet gold obligations. Under the old régime, when the government had to meet a gold payment it went into the market, already rarefied by the merchants having to meet drafts with gold, and bought against the trade. The fallacy of such a policy was the first thing that drew the attention of the creditors, who, in combination with the representatives of the government, decided to insert in the contract a clause to the following effect. The government should be allowed to defer interest payments on the ten million pounds sterling loan for a term of three years from date, so lessening the drain on gold to the profit of commerce. On the other hand, the creditors, still applying the economic axiom of supply and demand, required of the government the redemption of an equal amount of the inconvertible paper in circulation. This course was counted upon to force up the value of paper, and so put the government in a position to meet the accumulated interests at the end of the three years’ grace. At the same time it was recognized that this measure would bring but temporary relief, while the desideratum of both government and creditors was to place the country’s monetary system on a metal basis, and, by renewing specie payment, do away with the parasitical abuses which have well - nigh absorbed legitimate commerce.
The idea of redeeming paper in sufficient amount to renew specie payments and of founding a gold reserve fund had figured in the programmes of the two preceding governments, but the means in their power were completely inadequate and their efforts without result. The ten million pounds loan put in the hands of the government the means of at least making great advances toward this financial goal, and by reason of this contract the government has, at the present writing, redeemed over one seventh of the whole amount of paper in circulation at the time of the signing of the agreement, and has actually deposited in London a million and a half sterling as a guarantee fund. This latter accomplishment was the result of drastic measures which brought down upon the government the indignation of importers and taxpayers and a great hue and cry from the opposition.
Some of the means used to raise the funds were bitterly attacked, notably the requisition of a percentage of custom dues to be paid in gold. This percentage at first was ten, then fifteen, and now has reached twenty-five. Some critics say of this measure that it is an increasing burden which will kill commerce. However, it takes but little thought to appreciate the fact that the twenty-five per cent of to-day is really no more than the ten original, as the increase has been in just proportion to the steady appreciation of the nation’s paper. As has already been mentioned, paper four years ago was at a depreciation of 73.37 per cent, but owing to the very policy against which the merchants have been complaining, paper now is at a depreciation of only 55.55 per cent. Consequently the merchant who pays twenty-five per cent, in gold, of his regular duty charges, as opposed to the original ten, is paying his debts abroad with four fifths of the money he would have needed after the greater depreciation.
Another thing that caused a great deal of unreasonable criticism was the policy adopted in regard to railways, to which had been granted a government guarantee of seven per cent on capital invested. In 1852, with a view to encouraging foreign capital and to opening up the country, the government offered to guarantee earnings of seven per cent, for ninety years, on capital invested in railways, thinking that they would soon prove self-supporting. However, from among seven or eight which took advantage of this offer, only one has renounced the guarantee. To the others the government has been forced to pay, year after year, part and often the whole of the seven per cent interest guaranteed, and in so doing has sunk a sum far out of proportion to the benefit the roads have been to the country.
The present administration saw the necessity of stopping this flow of the country’s money into a pit with no visible bottom ; for even at the end of their respective interest-drawing terms, the railways would not revert to the government. The interest to be paid under the conditions existing would, in the end, have amounted to over fifteen million pounds sterling, and the state, after this enormous expenditure, would have been left with nothing to show for its money. So, with the authorization of Congress, the government started to buy in all railways holding guarantees. It was a great undertaking, and the gentleman chosen as the nation’s agent was Mr. José Carlos Rodrigues, editor of the largest daily in South America, and, by his knowledge of English and wide connections, eminently adapted for the work.
At the cost of increasing the national debt two million pounds the government now finds itself in possession of 1970 kilometers of railroad and the accompanying rolling stock. It is estimated that half the bonds issued to make the purchase will be redeemed in ten years’ time with the proceeds of the amortization fund established, and that the other half will soon after be redeemed through the earnings of the roads, several of which have already been leased. That the investment may prove a white elephant on the hands of the government is quite possible, but it is undeniable that the load thrown off was incomparably larger.
Two important institutions established by the present administration have already justified the labor they incurred, and have proved a boon to those who would study the economic conditions of the country. I refer to the adoption of consular invoices, such as have been in use in the United States for some years, and to the establishment of a statistical department. This department, organized but a few months ago, has already published voluminous data of the commercial movement of the country, and has put within the reach of all who are interested a means of ascertaining the exact standing of the country among the markets of the world.
Economic conditions are, more or less, at a standstill. Business is suffering under the burden of extreme taxation and fluctuating money values. Failures among banks have been most general, with the exception of the foreign anomalies, which under the name of bank have gambled on exchange, and being, as it were, the pulse of the monetary system, far from failing, have declared for the past fiscal year dividends of fourteen and twenty per cent! These conditions, linked with the financial crisis through which the government is passing, have seriously interrupted the flow of immigration and the progress of industries. A general lack of confidence in the banks prevents free circulation of money, and foreign capital is shy of placing itself under so heavy a tax system.
However, one important transference is being negotiated by German capital at the date of writing. It is almost certain that one of the largest and most privileged of the coastwise national steamship lines will shortly change hands, and, under German management, will be reorganized and improved. Only national steamers and vessels can enter the coastwise trade, and all must be commanded by Brazilian captains. The first of these clauses is of great advantage to the coming proprietors, and the second clause will present no difficulty, even if the company desires all German captains, as naturalization in Brazil is a most simple and abbreviated process.
A Scotch engineer of the port, who has been in the employ of this steamship line for many years, has estimated that if the Germans take the line at the figure quoted by the present owners, and put it under German management, it will pay for itself in seven years. And there is no doubt that the investment would bring high dividends to stockholders, and the reorganized line give a service incomparably more satisfactory to its patrons. At first sight it seems that the change would bring about unmixed blessing, yet in reality it is apt to prove but a mesh in a net of circumstances destined at some future time to involve Brazilian policy.
Before justifying this suspicion it may be well to give a brief résumé of external relations and a general idea of the atmosphere which is influencing public opinion, and which has given rise to surprising suspicions in regard to the United States. Brazil has an enormous territory to protect, and she is very much alive to its protection ; not through warlike demonstrations, — for her army and navy could not sustain such a course, — but through judicious arbitration. By this means the encroachments of the Argentine Republic on the south, and of French Guiana on the north, have been brilliantly repelled. The litigation over the boundary between British Guiana is fast coming to an end in the arbitration court over which the King of Italy is now presiding.
These encroachments have so far proved undisguised attempts to grab land, and Brazil, jealous of her boundaries, and conscious of the weakness of her navy and army as compared with those of Europe, has come to look on all comers with distrust. A few years ago the United States would have been made the exception, but since the war with Spain, Brazilians have been saying that the Anglo-Saxon blood has broken out in the trait for land-grabbing which has made England the most unpopular country in the world, and that the Philippines, Porto Rico, and Cuba, the last left on the limb to ripen, are the first fruits to be gathered by the new policy. The “humane war” aspect, which so aroused enthusiasm in our own country, has been regarded here with more than skepticism. Texas and its history are fresher in the minds of Brazilians than in those of many Americans.
At the founding of the republic, the Constitution and form of government of the United States offered a model which was religiously followed; but lately it has been very evident that there is a growing aversion on the part of many intelligent men toward American institutions and methods. This may be merely the natural reaction, — the return of the pendulum, — or it may have sprung from a feeling, among those that have the nation’s welfare most at heart, that the country must learn now that it should not look for, nor depend upon, external help in the working out of its destiny. The Monroe Doctrine meets commonly with this interpretation, “America for the Americans (of the North), ” a phrase which dates only from the year of the war with Spain, and many other indications go to show that, however altruistic that struggle may have appeared to our eyes, it presented no such phase to the Latin mind. The press has fostered this tendency to dislike to a considerable extent. To a prominent editor of mixed blood is attributed this phrase, “I am enough of a negro to hate the United States.”
Out of this general atmosphere sprang what has come to be known as the “Acre Question.” A definition of Acre may be of help to many readers in properly understanding the situation. Acre is a region between Brazil and Bolivia which has been in litigation during the political life of the two countries. The final demarcation depends on the location of the true source of the river Javary, which has been placed by three expeditions in three different latitudes. A protocol of 1895 adopted the decision reached by the joint expedition of 1874, and although Congress had not made the protocol law, the question was considered as settled definitely. But three years ago the present administration was convinced by the report of Mr. Cunha Gomes that by this settlement Brazil lost 735 square miles of her territory, and on October 30, 1899, the protocol of 1895 was annulled, and the Cunha Gomes line provisionally accepted.
The whole of the disputed territory is settled by Brazilians, and when, about eighteen months ago, the “Republic of Acre ” suddenly announced itself, the Bolivian government called on Brazil for help in restraining the secession. Brazil failed to see that it was any of her affair, and left Bolivia to handle the situation, which she did with considerable difficulty and expense, and, perhaps, to the chagrin of those Brazilian statesmen who would have looked upon the successful revolt of Acre, and consequent annexation to Brazil, as the solution par excellence of the whole problem.
It was at this juncture that the American Syndicate pushed in and further agitated the troubled international relations. For Bolivia there was only one point of view from which to regard the offer of the Syndicate to lease for sixty years a vast area that would include the troublesome district of Acre. No land-poor proprietor could jump more eagerly at an offer. The terms, briefly stated, were as follows: —
The Company to receive from Bolivia rights of possession, administration, sale and purchase, colonization, plantation, establishing of industrial and agricultural enterprises, exploiting gum (rubber), and minerals, and any other branch of industry that may promise advantages in the future. The Company to raise a capital of five hundred thousand pounds, of which Bolivia will subscribe one hundred thousand. Bolivia to grant the Company right to buy part or all of the territory of Acre in lots or mass, during five years, with the exception of lands lawfully occupied by foreigners whose rights must be continued and respected. Lands to be sold at ten centavos per hectare. The Company to have rights of peaceful navigation on all rivers and navigable waters in the territory of Acre, — not, however, to the exclusion of foreign vessels already trading in the region, — and of granting concessions for navigation. In case the Company takes upon itself the development of the rubber and mining industries, to pay the Bolivian government the duties established by law and a certain percentage of net receipts, — sixty per cent. The Company to have the right to construct, use, exploit, build, and open highways, railways, telegraphs, and gasometers ; to rent to private persons and levy lawful taxes, the government merely acting with the Company in determining freight and passenger tariffs, etc. Bolivia to cede to the Company its rights of levying taxes and the power necessary to this end, also all fiscal properties destined for government functions. The Company to have the character of a fiscal administration with full liberty to act. No monopolies to be established. All disputes to be settled by arbitration. One month after the approbation of this contract by the Bolivian Congress, the Company was to deposit with the Bolivian minister in London the sum of five thousand pounds, as guarantee of good faith.
In the memorandum attached to the body of the contract are found the following interesting notes: The Company to maintain all necessary public institutions at its own expense, to provide its own fiscalization for taxing purposes, and to provide and maintain a suitable police force, schools, hospitals, and barracks. Within a year to make surveys for railroads and canals connecting surrounding districts with that of Acre. The expenses incurred in the maintenance of a Bolivian inspector, judges, etc., and in transactions with the Brazilian Border Commission, and, if thought necessary by the government, in maintaining an armed force for the conservation of river rights and general order, or for any other purpose, to be charged against the sixty per cent of the net proceeds due the Bolivian government.
As soon as this contract was issued Brazil was invited to purchase stock to the amount of one hundred thousand pounds. But, from the first, the administration took an aggressive stand. The contract did not present any such aspect to the Brazilian as to the Bolivian government, and in his last message Mr. Campos Salles gives in a nutshell the Brazilian point of view as stated in a diplomatic note dated April 14, 1902, addressed to the Bolivian minister. The subject is presented purged of the exaggeration and jingoism with which the people and many congressional representatives have so diluted public opinion as to make Brazil’s position ridiculous if rated at the popular estimation. The note in question reads as follows : “The leasing of the territory of Acre, still an object of contention with another American nation, and dependent in all its relations upon Brazil, does not affect Bolivian economic interests alone.
“The Bolivian government, confiding to the Company the use of naval and military forces, attributes of real and effective sovereignty, in reality transfers a part of its sovereign rights, so that in cases of abuses the Brazilian government would come face to face with authorities which it cannot and will not recognize.”
Close upon this note came the action of the Brazilian government rescinding the treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation entered upon with Bolivia in 1896, and the consequent suspension of traffic. It was at this stage of affairs that alarmists began to drag the United States government into the question; and the notion that Uncle Sam intends to use the Syndicate as a wedge has spread with surprising rapidity. At first it is difficult to see what interest in the matter can be attributed to the United States government, but it must be remembered that the weaker country is always suspicious of the stronger, that history shows more than one case of robbery in the name of “protecting citizens’ interests, ” that in this special case a Roosevelt is a member of the Syndicate, and, last but not least, that Germany, with the United States’ consent, is just now terrorizing, perhaps with justice, a South American republic. Also it is true that such concessions, even when contracted in perfect good faith, often lead to disputes that in turn lead to intervention and demonstration of force which neither contracting party could have foreseen.
These facts, set rolling only a few months ago by two or three Rio papers, have steadily gained impetus and much superfluous matter in the way of rumors grotesque and possible, but hardly probable. So we have several telegrams from the Argentine Republic saying that General Pando, President of Bolivia, after the irrevocable protest openly presented by Brazil, edited a proclamation to all Bolivians stating that the American government was back of the American Syndicate.
With such incentive excitement was already running high when the South Atlantic squadron, consisting of the first-class battleship Iowa and the cruiser Atlanta, came up the coast, after a seven months’ stay in Montevideo, as had long been arranged by programme. The Atlanta put into Rio, but the Iowa, whose crew is less acclimated, passed Rio on account of the yellow fever epidemic, and went to Bahia, one of the most important and largest of Brazil’s seaports. No sooner had the great ship appeared in the bay than the report began to spread that there was an American manof-war in every port of Brazil.
The papers in Rio dedicated most of their cartoon space to President Roosevelt with his “tub of a battleship ; ” and one would have supposed from the street talk that transports were already in the Amazon loaded with American troops. Feeling rose so high that a few days before the departure of the Iowa fifteen or twenty young ladies of different families, who the night before had assured the officers who invited them that they would be present at an informal dance, not only stayed away, but failed to send any intimation of their change of mind. This, happening among a people who pride themselves on their courtesy, and very probably not the result of combination, shows better than any other incident that, however unfounded, there is so general a distrust of the United States that the people grasp eagerly at the chance to make mountains of molehills. In Pernambuco, also a principal seaport town, on the 8th of September, the students and townspeople held a meeting of protest against the alleged intervention of the United States, and expressed indignation at the telegrams from Bolivia to the effect that President Pando had declared that the United States had compelled Brazil to accept the Acre contract after specified modifications.
But popular feeling should not be confounded with international relations, and these, always cordial between Brazil and the United States, have been especially so of late. The stay of the Iowa in Bahia was marked, not so much by the almost childish suspicions of the city at large, as by the conspicuous confidence which the federal government displayed in allowing the American man-of-war to run ten miles up the bay to the islands Frade and Maré, with leave to land any portion of the crew for target practice.
The popular aversion is, perhaps, as was said before, the inevitable reaction ; and to show that there is no reasonable base for such feeling against the United States, it is enough to recall a few facts in reference to Germany in juxtaposition with the United States as relating to Brazilian affairs.
There are only two American colonies in Brazil whose members can be counted by hundreds, and, as a matter of note, in one of the largest seaports, containing 200,000 inhabitants and third in size of the cities of Brazil, the male members of the American colony amount by actual count to eleven, and almost half of these are naturalized Jews. Yet this city is one of the loudest in proclaiming the “American danger ” ! On the other hand, in the most progressive state of Brazil, the Germans are estimated at 160,000; and in two wealthy states farther south there can be found villages and towns where no language but German is current, and regions from which the very reports to the federal government are written and accepted in German. These regions have German schools and clergymen under the pay of the German Emperor.
The vast bulk of Brazil’s territory has never come in contact with American capital or enterprise, and, with the exception of the Amazon in the north and the coffee belt in the south, Brazil is practically an unexplored country to our commerce. Here again the Germans have made the advances, and have invaded every centre. Their inroads have culminated in the purchase of the coast steamship line, and all its branches, known as the Lloyd Brazileiro. It is curious, in view of these facts, that Americans should arouse such popular animosity, while the greatly disproportionate and clotted German settlements in the south are looked upon with apathy and indifference.
I am not endeavoring to establish a “German danger,” nor do I infer that the Kaiser intends a seizure in southern Brazil, however much he may realize Germany’s vital need of a great colony into which to pour and conserve the large surplus of vitality which, for years, has gone to enrich the blood of many alien peoples. But those who judge our young naval officers to be unreasonably hot-headed in suspecting Germany’s motives do not realize the magnitude of the temptation, constantly growing, under the watchful eyes of a young and ambitious Emperor,
Few people reflect that the German who is coming to Brazil to-day is not the German that so solidified the amalgam of our own race foundations. The German of yesterday turned his back on his country with a sigh of relief, and his lack of patriotism was the factor which made him an ideal immigrant; but today’s son of United Germany is beginning to realize his new responsibilities, and a pride in the Vaterland is awakening, which greatly lessens the emigrant’s powers of assimilation.
But there are no dangers in Brazil’s path that a wise government cannot avoid, no struggle whose final outcome is doubtful if honor can be remembered by other governments. As far as can be judged the present administration has been reasonably honest, and has made a laudable and sustained effort to redeem the financial situation. Mention should be made here of Dr. Joaquim Murtinho, to whose financial genius and energetic disregard of public opinion and the groans of taxpayers many justly attribute the results accomplished during Mr. Campos Salles’ term. On September 2 of this year Dr. Murtinho resigned from the post of Minister of Finance, which had brought him many enemies, but through which he gained a reputation for originality and perseverance that may carry him far. He may be neither a good nor a great man, but he knew how to estimate the extraordinary vitality of his country and the impossibility of bringing on general misery by taxation in a land where Nature yields both warmth and food with as generous a hand as in the Garden of Eden. His motto while Minister of Finance might well have been, “There is no straw that will break this camel’s back, ” for he lived up to it. It is said that every time he saw a house illuminated for a ball he prepared to levy a new tax in the morning.
All social questions in Brazil at present are thrown into the shade by the all-pervading money crisis. Labor organizations are in their infancy, capital is conspicuous by its absence, and the negro problem has no place in a land as yet untouched by race prejudices. Woman suffrage is unbroached, and woman’s position very conservative in its tendencies. It is true that women have, to a very limited extent, entered the professions in general, but aside from a few doctors, lawyers, and certified chemists, the women of the middle and higher classes have been ruled by custom and prevailing usage, and have drawn back from entering the ranks of the wageearner. Brazil is a Roman Catholic country, whose men are fast following the lead of France in casting aside the church, but whose women still look upon the priest’s word as law. This was shown very recently in the defeat of the bill for amending the law against absolute divorce. Under the guidance of the priests, thousands of women all over Brazil organized a thorough and successful opposition based upon the moral aspects of the case.
The truth is that Brazil is not ready to cope with social problems. The monetary puzzle has for years absorbed the attention of thinking men, but hard times will pass, and when the country has thrown off the financial yoke, the cry from all sides must be, “Education ” ! Education for the boy, who will some day be at the helm, — not book wisdom and elocution, for these come to the Latin with his silver spoon, —• but a true and practical sense of honor and justice, a realization of his responsibility to his fellow men, and theirs to him, a Spartan determination to act for the good of the whole, which will not allow him to shrug his shoulders when his fifth cousin, or his friend’s fifth cousin, slips out rich from a bank failure that has impoverished widows and orphans, or promotes a great swindle against the government. Education for the girl, which will teach her to work out her own emancipation, and to realize that woman’s destiny rests not so much in herself as in the men her sons become.
Higher education will do much toward untying many a knot that has been the despair of a generation, and it is to be hoped that North American enterprise will soon begin to push its way south, and that with increased commercial intercourse will come better understanding and a friendly intimacy between the lands that have given birth to the inventor of the steamship and the inventor of the airship, — the republics which hold the destiny of the Americas in their future.
The very conditions which proclaim Brazil’s need of America are the argument for the advantageous invasion of Northern enterprise and capital. Fancy a territory as vast as that of our states, already with a population of 18,000,000, possessed of only 2000 miles of railways! Transportation is the greatest problem of the day in this country, rich, not only in every variety of vegetable product, but also in its vast tracts of grazing lands, forests of precious woods, and innumerable deposits of minerals, all locked behind the barrier of distance.
Nature has blessed the country with the greatest river system in the world, and in the development of an adapted system of railways lies, not only the emancipation of Brazil, but the establishment of an enormous market. For the work of opening this country and its results, Americans and American mechanical manufactures are preëminently adapted. The same problem has been solved by them once, and the hard lessons of experience learned.
This point brings to mind American machinery in general, and it is sad to state that although the United States produces the most perfected apparatus for the manufacture of sugar, such American machines have scarcely invaded the large sugar centres of Brazil, and the rare specimens which are found scattered, here and there, through the sugar belt, in many cases were imported from Glasgow!
What is true of machinery can be applied, to a great extent, to our products in general. The market is ready and open to receive every description of American manufacture, but most of our firms are working along wrong lines and depending on letter-writing to place their goods. The German houses, which have had much longer experience in export trade, know that a call from a representative is worth fifty letters, and it is through travelers that our houses must open this market of Portuguese America, which, once acquainted with our goods, will be more worthy of our attention than any four Spanish American countries combined.
The cities of Brazil have hardly been invaded by electric street railways, and it is characteristic of our general policy in regard to South American affairs that while a German company was building a first-class road on this continent, our contractors, in the face of fierce competition, signed for the construction of a line in one of the cities of England.
Finally, I do not mean to say that absolutely no American goods have entered Brazil, nor to seem to forget that the American Light and Power Company of S. Paulo has made a great success, and that Manáos is an Americanized town, but I wish to make clear that, whatever the statistical tables of commercial intercourse may give as the figure of our exportation and importation with Brazil, this trade is but as a drop in the bucket compared with what the United States might draw from the development of this vast region, destined to become greater than any one market of Europe.
George Chamberlain.