Speech of Mr. Gama, jr., of the Commercial School
A representative of a peaceful people is always welcome to Brazil. You know already our traditional policy. From the beginning of our existence as a nation we have accustomed ourselves to see in your glorious country the nation which, first of all, substituted for military imperialism the beneficent and civilizing policy of free commercial expansion, joining producers and consumers without any link of dependence.
We followed with ardent sympathy your liberal and eminently humane action in the Chinese Empire, at the moment when that monarchy seemed doomed to dismemberment.
And you, sir, were the first to make understood the need of the maintenance of the administrative and territorial status quo of that empire, to which, as well as to other nationalities of the Far East, you are today the securest guaranty of national integrity.
You come to us, therefore, with the credentials of a peaceful people, and of a people that respects the autonomy of other nations, no matter how weak they may be.
In this quality we open to you our arms, and we heartily meet your wishes in the assurance that we contribute to the development of the ideas of peace and steadiness, without which the evolution of a people can only be accomplished imperfectly and at the cost of many centuries of hard effort.
The United States of Brazil acknowledged the advantages of a perfect communion of views in commercial matters with their great sister of North America. They were aware that essentially opposite points of view regarding commercial interchange separate them from some of the nations of the Old World.
So long as on the other side of the Atlantic an almost invincible barrier of customs duties impedes the entry of our products into markets naturally hostile to South American productions, our country has only two alternatives: either to continue the very irksome commercial relations with those markets, or to look for others with evident loss of a part of the harmony that ought to exist between nations affiliated by origin and for so many years united by the most intimate links of sympathy and intellectual solidarity.
Consequently, we adopted the legitimate defense of protectionism, while remaining faithful to those friendly feelings, and very naturally we turned to the continental nation that better understood the advantages of a free exchange of products; we looked unsuspiciously to the friendly people who conceived the idea of making in America, united and strong, a large neutral area devoted to peace amidst the possible divergencies that may perchance in time separate in aggressive antagonism a rejuvenated and martial Orient and the nations of the West.
We understood at once the difficult task to be accomplished, in order, by your side and with your aid, to secure the neutralization of America, so desirable and so necessary for the final reconciliation of nations still militarized, and for the establishment of a secure standpoint for the general fraternization of mankind.