OF INDUSTRIES. 53 



is not a mere dream. As to the efforts made for 

 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 econo- 

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

 and to receive cotton goods in exchange ? In 

 1870 its nine miserable cotton mills could boast 

 only of an aggregate of 385 spindles. But 

 already in 1887 there were in Brazil 46 cotton 

 mills, and five of them had already 40,000 spin- 

 dles ; while altogether their nearly 10,000 looms 

 threw every year on the Brazilian markets more 

 than 33,000,000 yards of cotton stuffs. 



Twenty five years later, in 1912, there were 

 already 161 cotton mills, with 1,500,000 spindles 

 and 50,000 looms, employing over 100,000 

 operatives.* 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 



* Times, August 27, 1912. 



