306 A YEAR IN BRAZIL. 



Milreis. Milreis. 



1870-75 Receipts ... 514,253,712 Deficit ... 56,612,024 



1875-80 ... 537,447,569 ...208,226,626 



" This was again liquidated by ' deficits,' to supply which the 

 Treasury issued extraordinary credits of 194,252,405 milreis, 

 which were made up by a fresh emission of paper currency, 

 apolicies of public debt, and a new national loan was opened, 

 payment in gold, by the decree of July 19, 1879, to the amount 

 of 50,000,000 milreis. In 1875, another loan of ^5, 000,000 had 

 been contracted in London, at the price of 96!, with interest at 

 five per cent., giving a nominal value of ^5,301,200, producing 

 47,122,366 milreis." About the time this pamphlet was pub- 

 lished, another loan (1883) of ^4,000,000 was issued, paying 

 four and a half per cent, interest. A further loan of ,6,000,000, 

 5 per cent, bonds, at 95 per cent., was brought out March, 1886. 



Senhor Carreira continues, "In these five years (1875-1880) 

 two principal causes influenced the augmentation of expenses. 

 First, the calamitous period through which the northern provinces 

 passed, chastened by three years of drought, which, beside the 

 misfortune of losing thousands of lives, took 61,552,915 milreis 

 from the public coffers; of this amount 30,814,136 milreis was 

 spent in the province of Ceara, which was also assisted on a 

 large scale by public charity. The second cause was the under- 

 taking of public works, amongst which was that of increasing the 

 canal for conveying water from the Rio do Ouro, authorized by 

 the decree of September 22, 1875 ; and others, for the provision 

 of water for the capital of the empire, on which 23,524,637 

 milreis were spent, a work which is not yet completed, and 

 which will doubtless demand more expenditure in forthcoming 

 Budgets," * 



After describing the various ways in which the moneys ex- 

 pended on colonists have been entered in the Budgets, Senhor 

 Carreira states that the total expenditure under this head up to 

 1880 amounts to 48,683,521 milreis, "a sacrifice from which the 

 country has not. derived the advantages it hoped for. Several 

 methods were tried in this work all ineffectual to produce what 

 was desired, so that, at length the Government was convinced of the 



* I have referred to the new reservoir, which I saw being constructed. 



