Water-front of São Salvador (Bahia).
Floating docks at Manáos, Amazonas.
The Lloyd had a marked advantage after the War started in being able to offer neutral transportation for passengers and freight, and while as a matter in which all Brazil was interested the charges for coffee carrying were long kept at a low level, there has been during the last year a natural tendency to raise general rates under tempting conditions. When the British Government’s Statutory List went into force in Brazil, about March, 1916, the British boats serving the Amazon were unable to carry rubber shipped by firms of Teutonic ownership; the Lloyd thenceforth remained the sole carrier of German-shipped rubber, and it appears reasonable to suppose that this fact had something to do with the Lloyd’s price of transportation to New York rising to fifty-four cents per cubic foot while Booth’s were charging their British and their neutral customers but thirty-four cents. All South American services made big money while these rates held, and for the Lloyd palmy days were especially opportune after a long season of poor returns. In common with the Central Railroad, it has been in the past an instance of a non-paying governmental company, but with drastic reforms and present good management it is in an enviable position.
Sea communication between Brazil and the rest of the world is carried on mainly by European steamship companies: good work is also done by the fleet of the Lloyd Brasileiro, which in addition to serving most ports of the country maintains a busy tri-monthly passenger and freight service to New York. Japanese vessels call at south Brazilian ports, as also do ships of the Australasian trade; the most conspicuous laggard in the shipping world was formerly the United States. In sailing-ship days American shipping was busy in these waters, but the lines were gradually displaced by more enterprising service from Europe; before the war the harbours of Brazil sheltered fine ships of the Royal Mail, Lamport and Holt, Booth, Harrison, Hamburg-American, Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, Transportes Maritimes, the Sud-Atlantique, of Italian and Austrian lines, Scandinavian, Belgian, Dutch—every flag was common but that of the United States, and when this entered it was at the stern of an oil tanker or a sailing vessel bringing lumber. The lines connecting with Europe were many; sailings to New York were few; service from New York direct to Brazil was still rarer, for the European lines created a dexterous commercial triangle by which merchandise of European origin came across the Atlantic to Brazil in ships which discharged their hardware and textiles, took on a load of coffee and hides for New York, there discharged the Brazilian goods and re-loaded with North American grain or cotton and with this steamed across the Atlantic home again.
The war stimulated direct service between the United States and Brazil, several lines now competing for business formerly held by Europeans; fast steamers offer quick passenger and freight service, following the hasty war revival of the wood-built sailing-ship: during 1915 there was a remarkable increase of activity in these vessels, and the writer has seen ten or more at the same time lying in some bright Brazilian port, their long graceful lines of the schooner taking one back to the days of Midshipman Easy or Tom Cringle of the famous Log. Many shipowners of these sailing craft must have made fortunes, for whereas in normal times they would have gladly carried freight for three dollars a ton, they were able to get four to four dollars and a half and so on in an ever ascending scale until over fourteen dollars was taken, and with a somewhat haughty sniff at that in late 1916.
In 1916 the only steamers under the United States flag operating in Brazilian waters were oil tankers, the coal-carriers of the Berwind company, and the vessels of the United States & Brazil S. S. line, carrying the products of the United States Steel corporation and taking back manganese ores and general cargo. Later, with the creation of a big American mercantile marine by the U. S. Shipping Board, and the allocation of a large number of ex-German steamers to the service of the United States, strongly sustained direct lines between North American and Brazilian ports were created which carry immense quantities of coffee in exchange for manufactured goods. Chilean, Cuban, Peruvian, Argentine and Uruguayan vessels now visit Brazil from sister Republics, and her own mercantile marine has undergone a remarkable development.
Not only did the Cia. Nacional de Navegação Costeira and the Cia. Commercio e Navegação add in a most enterprising manner to their fleets, but the Lage firm created important repairing and ship-building yards upon an island in Rio Bay, which performed great service to the Allies during the war; and the Government-supported Lloyd Brasileiro began to send its steamers far afield to North American and European waters.
The list of the Lloyd’s vessels presently received notable additions. At the outbreak of war a large number of German and Austrian steamers took refuge in Brazilian ports, and there lay for two and a half years, idle and rusting. After Brazil’s entry into the conflict many of these ships were brought into use, seventeen being added to the national fleets, while twenty-eight were chartered to France. By the middle of 1922 France had returned these vessels in first-class condition, and the bulk of them were permanently added to the Brazilian mercantile marine, the Lloyd counting forty ex-German steamers out of her total fleet of one hundred and two. Brazil’s claim for the price of the coffee seized by Germany at the beginning of the war, for the four Brazilian vessels torpedoed, and the maintenance of about seven thousand German sailors, is offset by the value of these merchants ships.
Smaller Brazilian lines are the Amazon River Steam Navigation Co.; the Cia. de Navegação de Maranhão; the Cia. de Navegação Bahiana; the Empreza Brasileira de Navegação; the Lloyd Nacional; and the Lloyd Transatlantico Brasileiro. The service to Brazil performed by the home-registered lines is proved by statistics: for out of 24,736 vessels calling at Brazilian ports during 1920, 19,542 were under the flag of Brazil. It is true that the size of the ships was comparatively small, the tonnage of nearly 25,000,000 being divided between 15,000,000 “Foreign” and 10,000,000 Brazilian, but the low average is due to the small boats employed in various riverine services. The Brazilian merchant service is the largest in South America and performs invaluable interstate transport work.