BRAZIL. 



71 



are political, financial, and industrial. For the 

 past three or four years the state of business 

 has been steadily going from bad to worse. 

 The long-credit system gave facilities for trans- 

 acting business long after the interior became 

 really insolvent, and thus postponed the crash. 

 Recently, however, the importers have begun 

 to realize the extra-hazardous character of this 

 system of long credits, and have, therefore, 

 been steadily cutting them down. Five years 

 ago a "cash" house (and ''cash" here means 

 five or six months' credit) was the exception ; 

 now the long-credit house is the exception, and 

 business is being reduced to a cash basis as 

 rapidly as outstanding credits will permit. 

 This step, however, was postponed too long, 

 for the outstanding credits are still enormous, 

 and the interior is practically bankrupt. 



Three years ago great difficulties were en- 

 countered in making collections in the prov- 

 inces. There was very little money afloat, the 

 masses were earning nothing, and everybody 

 was in debt. This state of affairs was princi- 

 pally due to the bad management and extrav- 

 agance of the large coffee and sugar planters, 

 upon whose industries nearly the entire busi- 

 ness of Central Brazil depends. Demoralized 

 by the pernicious influences of African slavery, 

 and recklessly over-confident because of the 

 prosperity enjoyed by the cotton-planters dur- 

 ing the years of high prices caused by the 

 American civil war, and by the coffee-planters 

 from 1871 to 1873, the great proprietors of the 

 country plunged headlong into extravagant 

 expenditures. 



The foreign-trade movement in Brazil is of- 

 ficially given as follows : 



The ensuing table shows the coastwise trade : 



IMPORT AND EXPORT IN MILREIS. 



1879-'80 . 180,712,800 



1880-'81 ; 155,843,600 



1881-'82 174,899,400 



Average 



170,485,200 



DIRECT EXPORT AND IMPORT OF GOODS AT RIO DE JA- 

 NEIRO. 



FISCAL YEAR 1881-'; 



Trade of the United States with Brazil. The im- 

 port of merchandise and specie into the United 

 States from Brazil during the fiscal year ended 

 June 30, 1883, was $44,488,459, the domestic 

 export from the United States to Brazil was 

 $9,159,330, and the re-export of foreign goods 

 and specie thither was $92,764. The principal 

 imports from Brazil into the United States 

 during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1882, 

 consisted of coffee, 315,465,986 pounds; cocoa, 

 1,456,665 pounds; horse-hair, 690,770 pounds; 

 India-rubber, 11,348,618 pounds; sugar, 228,- 

 683,398 pounds; wool, 493,505 pounds, and 

 hides represented by a value of $1,445,541. 

 The total import of Brazilian merchandise was 

 $48,801,878. 



The export of domestic goods from the 

 United States to Brazil in the same year com- 

 prised the ensuing chief items: Flour, 618,908 

 barrels, worth $4,546,224; cotton goods, 6,- 

 993,979 yards, worth $709,756 ; iron and steel 

 manufactures, $711,090; petroleum, 5,473,525 

 gallons, worth $663,575; lard, 3,698,462 

 pounds, worth $491,252; soap, 2,573,453 

 pounds, worth $134,783, and lumber and 

 wooden-ware, $355,628, the total domestic ex- 

 port summing up $9,035,452. Re-export of 

 foreign goods thither, $117,110. 



The Rise in Coffee in 1883. Fair Rio coffee 

 stood in the New York market at 8 cents on 

 January 1, 1883 ; on November 21st it had ad- 

 vanced to 12 cents. The gradual improve- 

 ment in the value of coffee had begun in all 

 consuming countries as early as October, 1882, 

 when good ordinary Java had declined in Hol- 

 land to the lowest ebb it had reached since 

 1848, say 25 centimes per half kilogramme ; on 

 November 20, 1883, it had advanced in Rotter- 

 dam to 33 centimes, the total rise in that mar- 

 ket thus having been 32 per cent., while the 

 improvement in Rio coffee in the New York 

 market had been, as shown above, about 50 

 per cent. This greater advance in Brazil coffee 

 in the leading American markets as compared 

 with the advance in the leading European mar- 

 ket in Java coffee, was due to the fact that 



