It is only necessary to realize that the territory of Brazil is larger than that of the United States, that the population of Brazil is greater than all the rest of South America put together, and that Brazil’s exports exceed her imports by one hundred million dollars annually, to understand the opportunity for developing our foreign trade.
Brazil produces considerably more than half of the world’s supply of coffee, besides enormous quantities of rubber. The possibilities for increased production of raw material are almost incalculable. It is just the sort of market for us. Here we can dispose of our manufactured products and purchase what will not grow at home.
We have made some attempts to develop the field, even though our knowledge is too often limited to that of the delightful person who knew Brazil was “the place where the nuts come from!” We have
little conception of the great distances that separate the important cities of Brazil and of the difficulties of transportation.
A story is told in Rio of an attempt to go from Rio to Saõ Paulo by motor, over the cart-road that connects the two largest cities in the Republic. The trip by railway takes about twelve hours. The automobile excursion took three weeks of most fearful drudgery. Needless to say, the cars did not come back by their own power.
It is more difficult for a merchant in one of the great coast cities of Central Brazil to keep in touch with the Amazon, than it is for a Chicago merchant to keep in touch with Australia.
Furthermore, to one who tries to master the situation, the coinage and the monetary system seem at first sight to present an insuperable obstacle. To have a bill for dinner rendered in thousands of reis is rather confusing, until one comes to regard the thousand rei piece as equivalent to about thirty cents.
Another and much more serious difficulty is the poor mail service to and from New York. To the traveller in South America, unquestionably the most exasperating annoyance everywhere is the insecurity and irregularity of the mails. The Latin-American mind seems to be more differently constituted from ours in that particular than in any other. He knows that the service is bad, slow, and unreliable. But it seems to make little difference to him, and the only effort he makes to overcome the frightfully unsatisfactory conditions is by resorting to the registered mail, to which he intrusts everything that is of importance. Add to this fact the infrequency of direct mail steamers from the United States to the East Coast, and it may readily be seen where lies one of the most serious obstacles in the way of extending our commerce with Brazil.