24 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS. 



taking a more lively part in the trade of the world, 

 who does not know the traditional capacities of the 

 Italians in that direction ? 



I ought also to mention Spain, whose textile, mining 

 and metallurgical industries are rapidly growing ; but 

 I hasten to go over to countries which a few years ago 

 were considered as eternal and obligatory customers 

 to the manufacturing nations of Western Europe. Let 

 us take, for instance, Brazil. Was it not doomed by 

 economists to grow cotton, to export it in a raw state, 

 and to receive cotton goods in exchange ? Twenty 

 years ago its nine miserable manufactories could boast 

 only of an aggregate of 385 spindles. But already in 

 1887 there were in Brazil 46 cotton manufactories, and 

 five of them had already 40,000 spindles; while alto- 

 gether their nearly 10,000 looms threw every year on 

 the Brazilian markets more than 33,000,000 yards of 

 cotton stuffs. Nay, even Vera Cruz, in Mexico, under 

 the protection of customs officers, has begun to 

 manufacture cottons, and boasted in 1887 its 40,200 

 spindles, 287,700 pieces of cotton cloth, and 212,000 Ib. 

 of yarn. Since that year progress has been steady, and 

 in 1894 Vice-Consul Chapman reported that some of 

 the finest machines are to be found at the Orizaba 

 spinning mills, while " cotton prints," he wrote, " are 

 now turned out as good if not superior to the imported 

 article " * 



The flattest contradiction to the export theory has, 

 however, been given by India. She was always con- 

 sidered as the surest customer for British cottons, and 

 so she has been until now. Out of the total of cotton 

 goods exported from Britain she used to buy more than 

 one-quarter, very nearly one-third (from 17,000,000 



* The Economist, i2th May, 1894, p. g : "A few years ago the Orizaba 

 mills used entirely imported raw cotton ; but now they use home-grown 

 and home-spun cotton as much as possible ". 



