The largest employer of labour in weaving mills is S. Paulo, with (1920) over thirty thousand hands; the next is the Federal District with about twelve thousand; third comes Minas with over eight thousand. São Paulo is also the greatest consumer of raw cotton, using thirteen thousand tons; the Federal District uses eleven thousand tons and the State of Rio nearly six thousand tons, Minas using, as we saw above, about five thousand.
At the end of 1915 when, in spite of great demands upon the national mills consequent upon checked importations of cotton cloth several had to reduce their staff on account of shortage of raw cotton, the Centro Industrial addressed a letter to the President of the Republic in which the plight of the manufacturers was displayed. A cotton famine in the North had reduced the national supply, and raised the price beyond precedent, while importations are always minute in Brazil owing to the heavy duty of about six cents per pound against it. The signatories of the letter explain that the cotton cloth industry never calls for less than forty-five thousand tons[[15]] of raw cotton produced on national soil, and that this amount was made up in 1913 into cloth worth over 162,000 contos; that, with the exception of aniline dyes, which cost about 2,000 contos a year, no other prime material enters into the Brazilian cotton Industry.
“The time is long past when cotton yarns were imported on a great scale for weaving. Now, our numerous factories have created in their vast and modern mills a perfect industrial cycle from spinning to printing,” so that the present import of yarns is worth only 1,800 contos, and the value of cotton cloths brought from abroad less than 17,000 contos (1914 figures).
At the same time Brazil’s export of raw cotton from the Northern States of fine long staple, usually practically all sent to England, diminished until returns for 1915 show only 5,223 tons against over 37,000 tons in 1913 and 30,000 in 1914, but this restriction did not make up the shortage following the drought. The Centro Industrial asked for a governmental enquiry into cotton conditions; in the middle of 1916 the Conference was held in Rio, samples of cotton, etc., displayed, and, after a collection of facts by a questionnaire sent to all weaving mills, expositions of the highest interest were made by officials of the government, technical experts, and cotton growers. Reference is made to this valuable conference under “Cotton,” but the manufacturing notes of these pages may include the name of Miguel Calmon, Chemical Director of the Companhia Industrial do Brasil, popularly known as the “Bangú” factory, who gave an address on the use of native vegetable dyes; optimistic as regards tints drawn from Brazilian forests, Senhor Calmon spoke with appreciation of the “urucú,” a dye producing hues ranging from yellow to deep red, as well as many other better known colouring matters. There is already a very busy dye factory in Minas, the Fabrica de Tinta Machado, using native vegetable bases, and much is expected in S. Paulo from dyes made by the use of “Inglotina,” obtained from mangrove leaves: a factory has recently been established at Cubatão.
It was at the same conference that Dr. Costa Pinto gave details of the threads spun in Brazil; counting in English measurement, Brazilian mills spin from No. 2 to No. 100 thread. From No. 30 upward a long staple cotton is needed, and only a small proportion of native-grown fibres are suitable, although there is plenty of short fibre for the coarser weaves.
Brazilian manufacturing already depends considerably upon the water power accessible, especially in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Minas. There is enough hydraulic force available in Brazil to turn the wheels of the world but the majority of these wonderful cascades are scarcely known by name, and many were not charted in the interior of Matto Grosso and Amazonas until the work of the Rondon Commission opened great tracts of those unknown lands. It is not possible here to do more than mention one or two of the most important falls. The Maribondo, in the Triangulo Mineiro, has an estimated force of six hundred thousand horse power; Urubupunga, on the Paraná river, has some 450,000 horse power; Iguassú has 14,000,000, four times as much as Niagara; and the force of the Sete Quedas, or Guayra Falls, on the Paraná near the Paraguay boundary, is calculated at 80,000,000 horse power. The Light and Power companies of Rio, São Paulo, Campinas, Petropolis, and other cities obtain their force from falls, hundreds of little townships in the central interior sparkle with electric lights, run factories and public utilities as a result of a nearby source of water power.
Allusion has before been made to the variety of Brazilian soils and climates which result in her possession of several important and utterly diverse industries; the list is so long that many interesting embryo industries, or others of local or internal importance only, can only claim space for passing mention. Among these is the wine-making industry of the far south, where European colonists cultivate grapes and have created quite a notable business in the production of fairly light red wines. These are shipped to many other parts of the country, are sold inexpensively in Rio and other cities, and while they lack the mellow tone of imported wines, they are sound, good, and popular.
Salt extraction in Rio Grande do Norte is another busy industry, and here is the chief source of Brazil’s native salt; it is exported from the ports of Macáu and Mossoró. Also in the north are the famous lace-makers, whose yards of fine rendas, made on a pillow with scores of bobbins, would not disgrace Malta; the big, thickly woven white hammocks of Ceará are justly prized all over Brazil, and both lace and hammocks should form the base of an export business. In Maranhão, where the babassú palm grows luxuriantly, a local industry extracts the fine oil from the kernel hidden in a stony shell, and experimental exports have occurred during the past year; the babassú is but one of the valuable nuts of the Brazilian north. One, the “Brazil nut”[[16]] of commerce, has of course been exported from the Amazon for nearly a century, and is a considerable revenue yielder to Pará and Amazonas states, but the sapucaia, of the same family but larger and sweeter, is rarer, less known, and fetches much higher prices in sophisticated world markets.
In Parahyba State there is at least one considerable coconut oil extracting factory, on a sandy spit south of Parahyba city; several thousand people are said to be employed in this industry and the product is shipped as far south as Rio: in spite of the immense quantity of coconuts on the littoral of the northern promontory there is no copra or fibre industry yet established, apparently because the native consumption of the nut leaves little surplus for the one, and interest is lacking in the other.